Marvel has registered a trademark for Jarvis for “Computer application software that may be downloaded via global computer networks”
Edwin Jarvis is the Avengers’ butler in the Marvel comics, Howard Stark’s butler in the MCU played by James D’Arcy, and the name for Tony Stark’s artificial intelligence programme, J.A.R.V.I.S. standing for Just Another Really Very Intelligent System that assists him in both his day-to-day life and being Iron Man, played by Paul Bettany.
Back in 2019, Marvel Comics challenged Blackberry over their use of the word Jarvis in a trademark application for the word ‘Jarvis’ for their cybersecurity software for cars. Blackberry were forced to change the nature of the trademark they were applying for.
Earlier in the year, another company was forced by Marvel Comics to rename their AI which they named Jarvis after the use in the Marvel movies, to Jasper. They wrote “The origin of the name Jarvis came from the community as their pet name for our AI writing assistant. Sure, we knew J.A.R.V.I.S was the name of Tony Stark’s AI assistant in the Marvel movie Iron Man, but after due diligence with our lawyers, we had good reason to believe no one would actually confuse our real AI assistant Jarvis with the fictional character from the movies. Then our Jarvis got popular… very popular. Over the last 12 months, over 350,000 people have loved using our AI writing assistant rating it 5-stars from over 2,500 reviews. Two customers even got tattoos of the Jarvis logo! This growing enthusiasm and community fandom raised concerns at Marvel. Eventually, their lawyers felt they needed to defend their trademark for the name Jarvis and sent us a cease and desist for using “AI assistant” with “Jarvis”. When we received the letter from Thanos, I mean Marvel, two thoughts came to my mind: Oh crap, Disney is threatening us… But we have a legitimate argument to use the name in this category so maybe we could win. Actually, this is Disney we’re up against. Even if we have a solid argument, they can keep us in court for as long as they want, draining our bank account and distracting us from progress. Is it really worth all of that just for a name? So rather than spending all this time and money fighting Marvel to keep the name Jarvis, which would distract us from continuing to build an awesome product for you, we decided to change our company’s name from Jarvis to Jasper.”
Will Microsoft have better luck if the lawyers come a’calling? Marvel has registered a Jarvis trademark as a result of the Blackberry fight for “Computer application software that may be downloaded via global computer networks and electronic communication networks for use in connection with mobile computers, mobile phones, and tablet computers, namely, software for use as a voice controlled personal digital assistant.”
But now Microsoft is launching an Artificial Intelligence project, also called Jarvis. Might someone at Marvel want to have a word?
Enjoyed this? Please share on social media!
