Boeing was the one making the most noise about it, with Northrup-Grumman also threatening to charge royalties.  Haven't heard much about it lately, which suggests that some type of agreement was reached. 

Royalties have been a bigger issue with model race cars.  Formula One teams have licensed their cars to specific model companies for years.  Tamiya has had high-profile agreements with Lotus, McLaren and others over the years, and as I recall Ferrari had an exclusive deal with Mattel for several years.

NASCAR sponsors also charged royalties to model companies which resulted in AMT issuing decal-less generic NASCAR models, obviously assuming that modelers would use aftermarket decals.  Problem was that they also went after the decal companies, driving several out of business, including one of my favorites, Slixx.

Mark

This was a big issue in model railroading. Existing railroad companies, specifically UP, claimed that they had the copyrights to logo usage, in particular for no longer existent railroads that they had absorbed through mergers and purchases, no matter how indirectly or in the past. Although there had been no clear transferance of copyright, or the railroads had ceased to exist so long ago that htey were in the public domain, the claim was that further use of those logos could damage the reputation of the current railroads. The manufacturers largely won, but I do think that in some cases royalties have been applied.

There was an article in an OLD, OLD issue of FSM about that subject..

Hans von Hammer

There was an article in an OLD, OLD issue of FSM about that subject..

I'm not certain the article was all that ancient.

The only article I know of published by FSM about the subject  was

"Licensing, trademarks and scale models

Will lawyers keep kits off the market? "

written by

Associate Editor Mark Hembree -

published in the July 1991 issue.

'

That's the one.. 

And still available for purchase from Fine Scale Modeler

Still a good read.

It was Sikorsky back during the end of 2003. I don't recall the outcome, but they were going after eBay and Revell for all sorts of trademark and licensing infringements because of sales of unlicensed or unendorsed Sikorsky products, mainly scale helicopter kits being auctioned or sold at retail. Apparently, even the name Black Hawk belonged to Sikorsky.

I do know that Revell reissued the Sikorsky Skycrane within the past few years.

I wondered why Revell's A-6E kit was named "Navy Attack Bomber" rather than "Intruder".

Glenn

"The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers"

      - William Shakespear, Henry the Sixth

mississippivol

I wondered why Revell's A-6E kit was named "Navy Attack Bomber" rather than "Intruder".

Glenn

See I don't buy that at all.

I could understand trying to maintain the copyright for something that developed out of company funds, but A-6E is a goverment designation, an organization to which all US citizens 'own', and so should not be covered by copyright laws.

Revell markets the kit as 1/48 "A-6E Navy Attack Bomber ", sidestepping any copyright issues. The A-6E nomeclature is indeed public domain.

Sorry, Chopper, I wasn't very clear. Thanks, Stikpusher, for clarifying that for me.

Glenn

Perhaps things are different that what I understood.....

A-6E Intruder is the entire military designation, does this mean that the US military paid Grumman, a royalty each and every time they used the word "Intruder" in conjugation with the A-6?  How about the likes of Global Security or Wikipedia?  How about the Intruder Association or You Tube?

I'm sorry, but there is legal precedent for companies loosing their copywrite/trademark through common usage in the US - Aspirin is one such case, originally a trademarked name for acetylsalicylic acid, made by Bayer, now it's the generic name.

Chopper Greg

Perhaps things are different that what I understood.....

A-6E Intruder is the entire military designation, does this mean that the US military paid Grumman, a royalty each and every time they used the word "Intruder" in conjugation with the A-6?  How about the likes of Global Security or Wikipedia?  How about the Intruder Association or You Tube?

I'm sorry, but there is legal precedent for companies loosing their copywrite/trademark through common usage in the US - Aspirin is one such case, originally a trademarked name for acetylsalicylic acid, made by Bayer, now it's the generic name.

The contracts the airframe companies sign with the government always has distinct clauses on copyrights, patents, and such.  It almost always gives government unlimited usage, but the rights stand for commercial use, so the manufacturers are indeed granted many rights in terms of commercial use.  I don't like it, but it would take a big effort to get this changed (and deep pockets).  Same thing about "common usage".  It would take a lot of money in court costs to sue on such grounds, and the use of the name has to be very widely used.

Always seemed silly to me, it's like free advertising to the company. How many kids built a F-14 that inspired them to grow up to an aviation engineer at Grumman or join the USN?

My two cents for what little it's worth

I thought this issue was settled in the 2006 defense budget. The modelling community, including members of this forum, mounted a letter/email campaign against this to Congress. (Ask another old timer on FSM, they should remember).  An amendment was introduced in that budget to stop defense contractors from trying to collect royalties from toy manufacturers.  The amendment was included in the approved budget.

Perhaps, but it seems that some civilian/defense manufacturers have trademarked certain names such as Hummer, Jeep, etc. So if a kit is released as M1037 Truck, or Truck Utility, 4x4 1/4 ton, it can side step those copyright name issues. But if released as a "jeep" or "Hummer", it does not, and the money grubbing corporate lawyers go after whatever model company for the violation that is costing them so dearly. And who said lawyers have to follow the law to make a buck?

stikpusher

Perhaps, but it seems that some civilian/defense manufacturers have trademarked certain names such as Hummer, Jeep, etc. So if a kit is released as M1037 Truck, or Truck Utility, 4x4 1/4 ton, it can side step those copyright name issues. But if released as a "jeep" or "Hummer", it does not, and the money grubbing corporate lawyers go after whatever model company for the violation that is costing them so dearly. And who said lawyers have to follow the law to make a buck?

We designed a logo for a resort in Arizona some many years back, that never was built. Several years ago a friend of ours was sitting down to breakfast in the hotel restaurant of a certain very large Asian country. There it was, on the cover of the menu.

Oh well...

I still agree with Shakespear my friend

Yeah, he had ex-wife issues IIRC...

Sikorsky was the one that used to give us trouble on eBay. Our solution was to delete the name "Sikorsky" from the listing; apparently that was what they were using as a search terms, rather than specific aircraft designations.