The Comic Con trademark lawsuit was a four-year federal court fight in which San Diego Comic Convention sued the organizers of Salt Lake Comic Con for using “Comic Con” in their event’s name. A California jury sided with San Diego in December 2017, finding trademark infringement and awarding $20,000 in damages. The much larger consequence came later: a permanent injunction barring the Salt Lake event from using the name, and an attorney fee award that, after appeal, left the defendants owing roughly $3.5 million. The parties eventually settled on confidential terms, and the Salt Lake event now operates as FanX.
Who Sued Whom
San Diego Comic Convention, the nonprofit behind Comic-Con International, has used a form of “Comic-Con” since 1970 and holds multiple federal trademark registrations, including Registration Nos. 3,219,568 and 3,221,808 issued in March 2007 for convention services.1United States Patent and Trademark Office. TTAB Proceeding 91222957, Exhibit 15 Those marks reached “incontestable” status under federal law after five years of continuous use, blocking most ordinary distinctiveness challenges.2FindLaw. San Diego Comic Convention v. Dan Farr Productions
The defendants were Dan Farr and Bryan Brandenburg, who launched Salt Lake Comic Con in 2013 through their Utah company, Dan Farr Productions. The debut event pulled between 70,000 and 80,000 attendees.3The Salt Lake Tribune. Utah’s FanX Will Move Because Salt Palace Is Closing for Renovation Brandenburg later testified that he picked the name after finding dozens of similarly named events in other cities and concluded the term described a type of convention rather than one company’s brand, though he acknowledged knowing San Diego had a trademark.4Courthouse News Service. Comic Con Defendant Says He Knew It Was Trademarked
San Diego filed suit on August 7, 2014, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California before Judge Anthony J. Battaglia, alleging federal trademark infringement and false designation of origin under the Lanham Act.2FindLaw. San Diego Comic Convention v. Dan Farr Productions Dan Farr Productions counterclaimed and raised roughly a dozen defenses, most importantly that “comic con” was generic.5IPWatchdog. San Diego Comic-Con Succeeds on Motions in Trademark Infringement Case Against Salt Lake City Event
Was “Comic Con” Generic or a Brand
The heart of the case was whether “comic con” is a common phrase anyone can use, or a protectable brand that belongs to San Diego. The defense pointed to dictionaries, 1960s-era books, and hundreds of events across the country using some form of “comic con.” It also noted that when San Diego first tried to register the unhyphenated “Comic Con” in the 1990s, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office denied the application for lack of distinctiveness.6Ars Technica. Comic-Con Trademark May Have to Activate Superpowers to Survive Attack
San Diego relied on a consumer perception study, known as a Teflon survey, that found 83% of respondents recognized “Comic-Con” as a brand name rather than a generic term.2FindLaw. San Diego Comic Convention v. Dan Farr Productions In pretrial rulings in September 2017, Judge Battaglia allowed the survey in and excluded the defense’s linguistics expert who would have testified the term was generic.5IPWatchdog. San Diego Comic-Con Succeeds on Motions in Trademark Infringement Case Against Salt Lake City Event
The Jury Verdict
An eight-day trial took place in December 2017. Under cross-examination, Brandenburg acknowledged internal emails referring to “hijacking the Comic Con brand,” and conceded he was aware of 30 to 50 instances of consumer confusion between the two events.4Courthouse News Service. Comic Con Defendant Says He Knew It Was Trademarked7Vlex. San Diego Comic Convention v. Dan Farr Productions, Permanent Injunction Order
On December 8, 2017, the six-person jury found that Dan Farr Productions had infringed San Diego’s family of service marks. The genericness defense failed. The jury rejected San Diego’s separate claims for unfair competition and false designation of origin, found the infringement was not willful, and awarded $20,000 in corrective advertising damages.8Courthouse News Service. San Diego Comic-Con Attorney Fees Order2FindLaw. San Diego Comic Convention v. Dan Farr Productions
The $3.9 Million Fee Award
The verdict itself was small, but the fee ruling that followed was not. On August 23, 2018, Judge Battaglia declared the case “exceptional” under the Lanham Act and ordered Dan Farr Productions, Dan Farr, and Bryan Brandenburg to pay San Diego approximately $3.9 million: about $3.77 million in attorney fees and roughly $212,000 in expert witness costs.9Courthouse News Service. San Diego Comic-Con Awarded Millions in Attorneys Fees
The judge’s order cited what he called “staggering” litigation misconduct by the defense. According to the order, defense counsel filed briefs exceeding page limits, missed deadlines, and improperly shared confidential “Attorneys’ Eyes Only” material on social media. The defense repeatedly relitigated issues the court had already decided, including arguments about naked licensing, generic-from-inception status, and fraud. At trial, the defense referenced San Diego’s wealth and warned jurors that a verdict would bankrupt the defendants and harm Utah’s economy, which the judge called a “deliberate attempt to appeal to social or economic prejudices.” The defense also continued using phrases like “national Comic Con brand” after the court ruled there was no evidence supporting the concept, and relied on patent and copyright cases inapplicable to trademark disputes.8Courthouse News Service. San Diego Comic-Con Attorney Fees Order
What the Injunction Bars
In the same August 2018 order, Judge Battaglia issued a permanent injunction prohibiting Dan Farr Productions from using San Diego’s trademarks or anything confusingly similar in the name, advertising, or marketing of any convention. The prohibition explicitly reaches variants such as “Comicon” and “Comiccon” and phonetic equivalents like “ComiKon.”7Vlex. San Diego Comic Convention v. Dan Farr Productions, Permanent Injunction Order
The court denied several defense requests: it refused to let the company keep using saltlakecomiccon.com as a forwarding address, and rejected a proposal to describe itself as “formerly known as Salt Lake Comic Con” for up to two years. The court did agree that “comic convention” is a generic phrase and declined to prohibit that use. Existing merchandise with the old name did not have to be destroyed, provided it was preserved as a historical archive and never sold, distributed, or displayed commercially.7Vlex. San Diego Comic Convention v. Dan Farr Productions, Permanent Injunction Order
What the Ninth Circuit Did on Appeal
Dan Farr Productions appealed. In October 2018, the defendants argued the judgment would push them into bankruptcy and told the appellate court that keeping the business alive during appeal would actually improve San Diego’s chances of collecting.10Fox 13 Salt Lake City. FanX Fears Bankruptcy, Harm to Utah’s Economy if It Is Forced to Pay in Comic Con Verdict The Ninth Circuit granted a stay within days, letting the company continue operating during the appeal.11Horvitz & Levy. San Diego Comic Convention v. Dan Farr Productions
On April 20, 2020, the Ninth Circuit affirmed almost everything: the trademarks were valid and not generic, the infringement finding stood, the summary judgment against the defense’s “generic from inception” theory was correct, and the case qualified as exceptional. The one change was that the appellate court vacated about $212,000 in expert witness costs, holding that the Lanham Act does not authorize recovery of costs beyond the standard categories in federal law. That left roughly $3.5 million of the fee award intact.12Bloomberg Law. San Diego Comic-Con’s $4 Million Attorney Fees Affirmed, Trimmed
Settlement and Rebrand
After the appeal, the parties reached a confidential settlement. The financial terms were not disclosed. During the litigation, the Salt Lake event had already rebranded as “FanX Salt Lake Comic Convention,” and it continues to operate under that name.13KUTV. Trademark Lawsuit Settled Between FanX Salt Lake Comic Convention, San Diego Comic-Con
What It Means for Other Conventions
San Diego Comic Convention actively enforces its marks and requires outside organizations to obtain a license before using “Comic-Con” or its variants in event titles, flyers, social media, or branded merchandise. When the San Diego Public Library issued a “Comic-Con Library Card,” the organization informed the library it was infringing and required a formal license. San Diego generally grants licenses for noncommercial uses without a fee, provided the user includes the registered trademark symbol and required language.14Programming Librarian. A Comic-Con by Any Other Name, or How Not to Commit Trademark Infringement at Your Library Comic Event
Legal commentators have noted that other major events, such as New York Comic Convention, could face claims on the same legal theory that succeeded against Salt Lake, though at least one other convention has previously defeated an enforcement effort by San Diego.5IPWatchdog. San Diego Comic-Con Succeeds on Motions in Trademark Infringement Case Against Salt Lake City Event The takeaway from the Salt Lake case is straightforward: a federal jury and the Ninth Circuit have both treated “Comic-Con” as a brand rather than a generic description, and using it without a license carries real financial risk.