Hobbit Follow Up

I posted back on November 29 about a lawsuit where the producers of the big Budget movie “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” asked a court to block the release of “The Age of the Hobbits” a much smaller budget production set to open the same week. I wasn’t sure if the court would grant the request at the time I posted (I have enough trouble predicting my own cases). As it turns out, the court has issued an order blocking the release. I had mentioned in my post that “The Hobbit” plaintiffs engaged Nielsen – – the consumer research folks – to do a study about whether consumers would be confused by the two titles. I thought that was an effective approach. So did the court. It noted that “[t]he survey results showing that nearly 50 percent of respondents associated the term ‘Hobbit’ with the trademark holder is thus persuasive evidence that the Hobbit Marks have acquired secondary meaning.” So good news to those slightly muddled middle earth fans – there’s only one Hobbit movie out there. No risk of wandering into the wrong theater! These people have enough on their minds!