I’m working on template for the US Patent and Trademark Office for saveourmodels.com and wanted to get a few opinions on this. As far as aircraft naming goes, as I understand it, the military designations such as F-16 and B-17 are assigned by the military. How about the ‘common name’? like Tomcat or Superfortress. In the letter I was going to try to get the office to revoke private trademarks on those names as well. I know a lot of these names come from the media and such and they just stick.
I’m sure all of you are aware on what is going on with the licensing and names and all that. A few people suggested that the trademark office would be a good place to write in addition the Congress. So, I figured I’d make a template for that as well, so if y’all wanted to mail them, you could.
Yes, most names do come from the media, a spectator, military pilots, and even the manufacturer can assign a name. As for the legalites ??? I do know that for a name to not only just stick there is an official designated name for an aircraft as well. ie. the A-10 Thunderbolt II, however it has a nickname “warthog.” A case in point now is the F-117. We all refer to it as the F-117 Stealth Fighter. It does not have an official name that I am aware of, but , the pilots have asked the air force to make it’s official name "Ghost " If that was or is approved then the official A/C id would be the F-117 Ghost.
I hope that this clarifies some things a bit.
Drew
Many of the names start with the manufacturer and maybe approved by the military. Some companies follow certain themes. Grumman “cats”, Wildcat, Hellcat, Tigercat, Bearcat, Panther, Cougar, Tomcat ; Republic “Thunder”, Thunderbolt, Thunderjet, Thunderstreak, Thunderflash, Thunderchief, Thunderbolt II ; McDonnell supernatural, Phantom I, Phantom II, Demon, Banshee; Boeing “Strato…” Stratoliner, Stratocruiser, Stratotanker, Stratofortress , etc The USAF official name of F-16 is Fighting Falcon, while Viper is quite common. The SR-71 picked up Blackbird from Lockheed and Habu from crew and general public. USAF calls the B-1 the Lancer, while common is BONE for B-0ne. USAF calls the B-2 Spirit while the public calls it Stealth Bomber. I doubt if any of them are copywrited as such.
Darwin, O.F. [alien]
MA C, Habu is actually the name of a poisonous snake found on the island of Okinawa, where SR-71s regularly pulled rotations. Its long & black, like the SR-71, so the name stuck.
ch47guy is correct. The Habu is a very poisonous snake found on Okinawa. The local Japanese first started calling the plane by that name and later the crews were referred to as “Habu’s” also. The coiled snake emblem appeared in many places such as flight suit patches, unit emblems, mission symbols and tail art on the aircraft, etc.
During one of my TDY trips to Okinawa with the SR-71, I was visiting a friend in his on base quarters when we heard his Collie dog barking very excitedly in the back yard. We ran out there and heard the dog yelp. He was dead by the time we got to him from a Habu bite.
The people in India have Mongoose and Cobra fights as “sporting events” for the entertainment of stupid humans. The people of Okinawa have Habu and Mongoose fights. The Mongoose nearly always wins against either of the snakes. Those little critters are incredibly fast.
Darwin, O.F. [alien]
As for factory-given names, don’t forget the F4U Corsair and A-7 Corsair II. But the latter should have been Corsair III, since Vaught also made the biplane Corsair in the 1920’s which was flown by the Marines in Nicaragua. And as for Sabre and Super Sabre, since jet aviation was all all the rage in the 50s, and cars were being designed to look more like jets, Buick named one of its models, the LaSabre, after the airplane.
TOM
also the F-111 has no offical name but it’s crew’s started to call them Aardvarks because of the nose of the plane and from then on they where known as Vark’s, and if you look at the F-22’s they where first called Lightning II’s for the fly off but when the AF bought into the plane they re-named it the Raptor, as for the F-117 Nighthawk should have been called the Owl, because they operate at night, is stealthy when on the hunt, and has very good night vision,
I would quess that those aircraft given official name’s by the manufacture would be copyrighted and protected by the patent. Any offical name given by the Government and adopted by the manufacture may also be protected but more research would be required. Unofffical names would not(unless the manufacture did copyright it, research would be required). This is only my quess and may not be fact
The F-16 was originally named just “Falcon” . It turned out that a French bizjet already had the name Falcon so General Dynamics had to change the name to “Fighting Falcon”. I’m not sure if there was a threat of legal action by the French company but it would be a good place to start research on any legal protection as to the names of aircraft.
You don’t have to formally submit a copyright or trademark request (patents aren’t issued on names) to the government in order to get the protection. It just makes it a little easier to win in court, as you have a fairly good paper trail of what was established when. As far as I know, the only way to actually get it revoked is to be so similar both in name and product/field that confusion is likely to result, and then the first (or increasingly common later but larger) party gets upset and sues.
You don’t have to formally submit a copyright or trademark request (patents aren’t issued on names) to the government in order to get the protection. It just makes it a little easier to win in court, as you have a fairly good paper trail of what was established when. As far as I know, the only way to actually get it revoked is to be so similar both in name and product/field that confusion is likely to result, and then the first (or increasingly common later but larger) party gets upset and sues.
Ok, so maybe I’ll have to do some creative arguing in my letter to the P&T Office, but I’m sure there is a way to keep them from trademarking military designations and such. A lot also be found in their corporate charters, which I am going to request copies of. That won’t help with the trademarks as much as it will with their industry reach.
Thanks for all of the info guys and I’ll keep you posted on my progress.
Speaking of F’s, F-111? I know it started out as a fighter idea for the navy, but thats all I can remember. I remember the P-51 got the mustang name from the RAF.[:)]
Gilmund, if I remember correctly, it was purely a political thing. The Air Force generals that were in power at the time gave it the F designation because it would go through Congress with less hassle than if it was labeled “A” for attack. Something about the vision of a fighter defending the skies (think P-51s), as compared to an attack aircraft blowing sh*t up, killing innocent civilians. That’s one of the reasons that the F-111 is not the A-111.
Was at my LHS today and talked with my old boss. In the course of our conversation he said that some companies are having troubles with the manufacture’s using military designations. He mentioned C-130 and P-38 as two of them. Seems the manufacture wants his cut
Case in point. AMT put out a model of the Caterpillar D8H bulldozer about 20 years ago. It had the Cat logo and name on the box and the model. AMT wanted to re-issue the model, but Caterpillar wanted too much money for the use of their name. AMT just re-issued the exact same kit and called it simply, “Bulldozer” with no names or logos on the box or model. It seems Caterpillar has a patent on the arrangement of the holes in the front of the body to let air into the radiator. AMT had to change that on the model too.