{"id":155347,"date":"2023-04-12T22:00:33","date_gmt":"2023-04-12T22:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/culture.org\/?p=155347"},"modified":"2023-04-12T22:00:33","modified_gmt":"2023-04-12T22:00:33","slug":"monster-beverage-corporation-targets-glowstick-entertainment-pokemon-and-monster-hunter-in-trademark-crusade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/culture.org\/special-interest\/monster-beverage-corporation-targets-glowstick-entertainment-pokemon-and-monster-hunter-in-trademark-crusade\/","title":{"rendered":"Monster Beverage Corporation Targets Glowstick Entertainment, Pok\u00e9mon, and Monster Hunter in Trademark Crusade"},"content":{"rendered":" \r\n\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n
<\/p>\n
Monster Beverage Corporation, the company behind the popular Monster Energy drinks and a notorious trademark bully, is once again making headlines for its aggressive trademark objections.<\/span><\/p>\n This time, the company has targeted indie game studio Glowstick Entertainment, pushing them to change the name of their horror game, Dark Deception: Monsters & Mortals, due to its alleged similarity to Monster Energy’s brand.<\/span><\/p>\n Monster Beverage Corporation, partially owned by Coca-Cola and boasting a market cap of $55 billion, has a history of attacking companies that use “monster” in their names or products.<\/span><\/p>\n One of the more well-known instances occurred in 2020, when Ubisoft changed the name of its game from Gods & Monsters to Immortals: Fenyx Rising after Monster’s complaints.<\/span><\/p>\n The company has also sued a small Ohio restaurant for using “monster” in its signage and engaged in a years-long legal battle with a group of fishkeepers who wanted to sell merchandise with the name of their online forum, “MonsterFishKeepers.”<\/span><\/p>\n Monster Beverage Corporation, partially owned by Coca-Cola and boasting a market cap of $55 billion, has a history of attacking companies that use “monster” in their names or products.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/span>\r\n\r\n With deep connections in the videogame industry, Monster Beverage Corporation sponsors streamers and events.<\/span><\/p>\n However, it has also targeted some of the most beloved game franchises, such as Pok\u00e9mon and Monster Hunter.<\/span><\/p>\n The company has filed over 134 trademark objections in Japan and over 100 objections in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.<\/span><\/p>\n Despite these objections, Pok\u00e9mon games have been released with their original names, while other companies haven’t been as fortunate.<\/span><\/p>\n Glowstick Entertainment’s CEO, Vincent Livings, has taken to Twitter to call out Monster Beverage Corporation, referring to them as a “bully.”<\/span><\/p>\n He revealed that the company proposed a negotiation, allowing the use of the name Monsters and Mortals in exchange for an agreement that the studio would never use any variation of “monster” in any future game titles.<\/span><\/p>\n Livings also mentioned that Monster demanded the studio never use a green and white logo on a black background for any future games.<\/span><\/p>\n Livings plans to fight back against Monster in court and is advocating for a boycott of the energy drink company.<\/span><\/p>\n He is currently in the process of filing a Motion for Summary Judgment to halt Monster Energy’s legal team from prolonging the process and draining Glowstick Entertainment’s financial resources.<\/span><\/p>\n The motion has a 50-50 chance of success and can still be appealed, but it would save the indie studio valuable time if it succeeds.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":155348,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[411],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-155347","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-special-interest"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/culture.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155347"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/culture.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/culture.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/culture.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/culture.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=155347"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/culture.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155347\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/culture.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/155348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/culture.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=155347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/culture.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=155347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/culture.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=155347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Bullying Small and Big Companies Alike<\/strong><\/h2>\n
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Ties to the Videogame Industry<\/strong><\/h2>\n
The Current Dispute with Glowstick Entertainment<\/strong><\/h2>\n