SDCC2015-50

The ongoing trademark battle between Salt Lake City Comic Con and the San Diego Comic-Con may be closer to settling, although it’s only listed as “promising,” with the judge in the case giving them more time to hash things out mano a mano. The two sides are set to meet with the judge this Wednesday in San Diego.

At stake is the trademark for the word “comic-con”—the CCI (Comic-Con International, the body that runs SDCC) folks trademarked it long ago, and contrary to what many have reported, they have both the version with a hypen and without a hyphen in their filing. San Diego sued Salt Lake City in 2014 over their use of “Comic Con” and negotiations have been ongoing ever since, with a seesaw of near settlements followed by expanded legal maneuverings ever since.

“Drafts of the agreement have been exchanged,” according to the Thursday court filing requesting the extension, “and the parties hope to soon reach agreement as to all terms.”

The terms of the settlement, in their current state, “are very similar” to those discussed at a Nov. 23 meeting, according to the filing. Those terms have not been publicized.

In prior court documents, San Diego had suggested Salt Lake use the name of its sister, spring-time event, “FanX,” for both of its events.

Since the hyphen is not really what is at stake in this matter, what really seems to have irked SDCC is the similarity of the SLCCC logo and promotion to some of San Diego’s branding. However, there seems to be room at the cosplay parade for a lot of different events, so hopefully the talks will not break down this time.

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