{"id":2417,"date":"2022-10-19T14:52:03","date_gmt":"2022-10-19T06:52:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.icaridea.com\/?p=2417"},"modified":"2022-10-19T14:52:03","modified_gmt":"2022-10-19T06:52:03","slug":"the-batmobile-was-patented-56-years-ago-today-and-still-ended-up-in-court","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.icaridea.com\/?p=2417","title":{"rendered":"The Batmobile was patented 56 years ago today and still ended up in court"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> close     <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/a57.foxnews.com\/static.foxnews.com\/foxnews.com\/content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/896\/500\/batmobile-sketch.jpg?ve=1&amp;tl=1\" alt=\"'Batman' made Burt Ward miss a big screen opportunity\" width=\"896\" height=\"500\" data-v-a7f268cc> Video <\/p>\n<h4 class=\"title\" data-v-a7f268cc>&#8216;Batman&#8217; made Burt Ward miss a big screen opportunity<\/h4>\n<p data-v-a7f268cc>Fox411<\/p>\n<p class=\"speakable\">Holy Bat Patent, Batman!<\/p>\n<p class=\"speakable\">Famous movie car designer George Barris was granted a patent for the design of the Batmobile 56 years ago today on October 18, 1966.<\/p>\n<p>The iconic car was used throughout the Batman TV show&#8217;s original three-season run and made an appearance years later in a 1989 film.<\/p>\n<p>Barris designed the first one around a Lincoln Futura show car and built three more with fiberglass bodies for the production.<\/p>\n<p>BATMOBILE IMPOUNDED BY MOSCOW POLICE<\/p>\n<p> <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/a57.foxnews.com\/static.foxnews.com\/foxnews.com\/content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/640\/320\/batmobile-sketch.jpg?ve=1&amp;tl=1\" alt=\"A patent for the Batmobile was issued on October 18, 1966.\"> <\/p>\n<p>\n      A patent for the Batmobile was issued on October 18, 1966.<br \/>\n      (USPTO)<\/p>\n<p>The original was sold at auction in 2013 for $4.62 million, the same year it was the subject of a rights battle in court.<\/p>\n<p>Not over the patent, which expired after 14 years, but its copyright and trademark protections.<\/p>\n<p> <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/a57.foxnews.com\/static.foxnews.com\/foxnews.com\/content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/640\/320\/batmobile-show.jpg?ve=1&amp;tl=1\" alt=\"Four cars with the design were featured on the Batman TV show.\"> <\/p>\n<p>\n      Four cars with the design were featured on the Batman TV show.<br \/>\n      (Silver Screen Collection\/Hulton Archive\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n<p>A company named Gotham Garage had been selling replicas of the vehicle and D.C. Comics accused it of violating its intellectual property without permission.<\/p>\n<p>Justice Ronald Lew of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California found in favor of D.C. owner Warner Bros., deciding that the Batmobile itself is a character.<\/p>\n<p>OLDEST-KNOWN &#8220;BATMOBILE&#8221; RESTORED AND READY TO GO<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Defendant\u2019s argument that Batman is merely a car wholly fails to capture the creativity and fantastical elements that stand apart from the fact that the Batmobile also happens to look like a car,&#8221; Lew wrote.<\/p>\n<p> <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/a57.foxnews.com\/static.foxnews.com\/foxnews.com\/content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/640\/320\/barris-batmobile.jpg?ve=1&amp;tl=1\" alt=\"George Barris died in 2015.\"> <\/p>\n<p>\n      George Barris died in 2015.<br \/>\n      (Jonathan Alcorn\/Bloomberg via Getty Images)<\/p>\n<p>Gotham Garage appealed the decision, but it was upheld through a unanimous verdict by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in 2015, which cited the vehicle&#8217;s &#8220;physical as well as conceptual qualities&#8221; and a role akin to being Batman&#8217;s side-kick.<\/p>\n<p>CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP<\/p>\n<p>Barris died just a few weeks after the decision. It was appealed once more to the U.S. Supreme Court, which declined to hear it in 2016.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>close Video &#8216;Batman&#8217; made Burt Ward miss a big screen opportunity Fox411 Holy Bat Patent, Batman! Famous movie car designer George Barris was granted a patent for the design of<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2418,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.icaridea.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2417"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.icaridea.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.icaridea.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.icaridea.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.icaridea.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2417"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.icaridea.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2417\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.icaridea.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2418"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.icaridea.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2417"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.icaridea.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2417"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.icaridea.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2417"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}