TNA Suing Patterson, Christian Issues

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Mike Johnson reports that TNA is suing Albert Patterson. Patterson who previously won a lawsuit over Andrew McManus the owner of the now defunct World Wrestling All-Stars sued TNA last year claiming he had the term "superstars" copyrighted. TNA settled with Patterson out of court and then later discovered that Patterson had abandoned the "superstars" trademark so his trademark became null and void. TNA is now suing Patterson asking that he return the money they gave him when they settled out of court.

There is talk of doing a Mark "Slick" Johnson vs. Earl Hebner match on one of the upcoming PPV events.

As previously mentioned before the WWE has filed papers opposing Christian Cage's trademark of "Captain Charisma". WWE is claiming that Christian's attempts to trademark it will cause "confusion in the marketplace" and that WWE will suffer damages if he is allowed to keep the trademark. It also interesting to note that since the papers have been filed, TNA is no longer selling Christian's "Got Charisma ?" t-shirt.

[Dan Poutsma]

I'm sorry for my ignorance, but A) who is Albert Patterson and B) if he was suing anybody over the trademark "superstars", which he supposedly claims ownership of, then why was it TNA and not WWE which has been using that term in reference to their performers for years?

As for the Christian situation, I can see WWE's point of view since the "Captain Charisma" nickname was established while he was still with the company, Even though it may have possibly been Christian's idea and even though he may have filed to trademark it, my understanding is that whether it be the company or the performer that comes up with the name, the policy is that it's WWE intellectual property. I don't know how "damaging" it would be for him to use it in TNA (which he's been doing ever since he arrived there, so I don't see why it's taken WWE so long to go legal with it if they consider it that "damaging"), but if that's how it works then he shouldn't be able to use it.