Lucasfilm has unveiled three newly registered and mysterious trademarks to EUIPO [the European Union Intellectual Property Office] this week. These Lucasfilm trademarks are something of an oddity for several reasons. What are The Great Circle, The Galactic Circle, and Circle of Resistance?
These trademarks are under a new Lucasfilm ownership listing
This may not signify much of anything. After all, the address and information for Lucasfilm are all the same. The only thing that has changed is the representative firm. Furthermore, the firm is Carpmaels and Ransford , which is the same legal firm handling all those new Marvel trademarks that dropped recently as well.
Originally, most Lucasfilm trademarks are by Boehmert & Boehmert Anwaltspartnerschaft. However, this new listing with the three new Lucasfilm trademarks uses the same Irish firm as the latest Marvel trademark drop. Are both these companies using a new firm to register with EUIPO?
You can view all these listings here on EUIPO.
What can this mean? Some (including myself) have wondered if this is a hoax. However, it’s not exactly cheap to list with EUIPO, and takes a bit of knowhow. The listings are also made with Carpmaels and Ransford, which is a legitimate firm.
These Lucasfilm trademarks are likely media projects
All three of the Lucasfilm trademarks are registered under the NICE categories of 9 and 41. Typically, these are the categories Lucasfilm has used for films such as The Force Awakens, Rogue One, and other movies. The category 41 refers to media itself. Series such as the Mandalorian initially only received a 41 category. The category for 9 covers many different items, but for films, it covers DVDs and other physical media.
The list is:
- The Great Circle
- The Galactic Circle
- Circle of Resistance
That doesn’t necessarily mean The Great Circle, The Galactic Circle, and Circle of Resistance are movies. It is possible they represent different projects and the categories are being used differently. It is intriguing that these are the categories normally used for films, but it can’t be ascertained that these three titles are truly films.
The biggest question is why they are being released now, all at once?
After all, most Lucasfilm trademarks are released after a project is already named publicly. There still isn’t a trademark for the upcoming series Skeleton Crew!
Again, it’s unlikely someone is releasing media names that isn’t Lucasfilm for a laugh. It most likely is Lucasfilm, the question is why.
What are the media projects about?
When the trademark listing for The Great Circle released, fans debated on Reddit what it could mean. Was it for Willow? For Star Wars? For Maggie Shipstead’s novel Great Circle?
The novel is unlikely: it’s been optioned for a television series already and not by Lucasfilm. That left Willow or Indiana Jones or Star Wars. Then the listing for The Galactic Circle released. That ruled out all but Star Wars.
Finally today, the listing for Circle of Resistance went up. That has emphasized that this is indeed a Star Wars media project.
But what are these listings? The categories suggest films, but it’s not like Lucasfilm to name three movies at once and release those name as trademarks before they are publicly announced.
It is possible that they are separate names being tossed about for one film, perhaps Taika Waititi’s Star Wars film for late 2023.
If not, they could represent anything from published media, games, series (streaming or web). While it’s highly unusual to get a trademark for media before it’s released, this may represent something of lower importance to Lucasfilm. It’s also not unheard of to get a trademark before a release–some theme park names were trademarked before their public announcements. It’s rare, but not unheard of entirely.
While this is the most mysterious Lucafilm trademark release we’ve seen in a long time, time will eventually show us what these are.