• The founder of TRON, Justin Sun, had filed three patent applications in early November, but all of them were blocked by Disney.
• So far, TRON has refrained from filing an appeal because, according to some experts, the chances of success are not very good.

TRON filed several applications with the US Patent Office in the middle of this year. However, TRON now faces a major problem: Walt Disney. The entertainment company has created a multi-billion dollar empire, which owns numerous high-quality brands and patents for films from Walt Disney Pictures, Pixar or Marvel Studios. TRON is a 1982 science fiction film released by Walt Disney that has earned more than $50 million worldwide.

Due to this success, a sequel to the film was shot in 2010 with “Tron:Legacy”, which even exceeded the revenues and generated 400 million USD. The film is about a child who immerses himself in a computer world and discovers the new possibilities of technology. Disney owns the trademark rights to the name “TRON” as well as other related trademarks.

Disney blocks trademark applications of TRON

Disney has prevented Justin Sun from applying for trademarks with the brand names “TRON”, “TRONNETWORK” and “TRONIX”. The applications were blocked at the US Patent and Trademark Office on November 6, 2019. So far TRON has not filed an opposition. Disney’s lawyers argue that the registration of TRON could damage the Disney franchise concept:

TRON Marks in all capital letters in a font/stylization that is highly similar in appearance to the unique and distinctive font/stylization of [Disney’s] TRON Marks.

Jake Chervinsky, a lawyer at the law firm Compound, compared the different graphics of TRON and Disney and also shared the just quoted passage from the document on Twitter.

Mati Greenspan, former senior analyst at eToro, describes that in his opinion Disney has a clear legal claim to the Tron brand, as it has existed for several years and is known worldwide:

To be fair, Disney probably has a better claim to the name Tron. I wouldn’t be surprised if the reason they let it lapse was simply because they had no case to begin with—perhaps they were just trying their luck.

Chervinsky goes on to state that Disney has filed a strong opposition and bases its refusal on possible dilution of the mark as well as confusion of the mark. If Disney is serious in this case, Tron could even face further legal consequences:

This might not be the end, though. If Disney’s serious about this, they could take Tron to court in a trademark infringement suit.

For the moment, the case seems to be closed. However, it remains to be seen whether there will be further developments in this case.

TRON tests anonymous transactions

A few days ago, Justin Sun announced the launch of a beta test version for shielded transactions using zk-SNARKs on the TRON Blockchain. TRON is currently piloting private transactions in which the addresses of the sender and recipient, the transaction input and output, and the transaction amount are masked.

This new feature should subsequently be available for optional use, so that network users will still be able to decide for themselves whether to use shielded transactions using zk-SNARKs. Many projects in the cryptocurrency space follow this trend and offer their users the possibility to enhance their privacy and data protection.

The price of TRX has been moving sideways (+ 1.68%) within the last 24 hours and stands at 0.0134 USD at time of writing.

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