Category: Opinion

Jay Agonoy also posts pieces of his mind regarding issues that makes him think, just like any other person online. This is the Opinion section.

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On Trademarks, Wordmarks, and some other sightings

Today, we’re going to discuss Trademarks and / or Wordmarks. I went to the Philippine Intellectual Property Rights Office (IPOPhl) website to search for trademarks or wordmarks that include the terms “anime“, “otaku“, and yes, “cosplay“.

First and foremost, why we are talking about these kinds of stuff? Patents, wordmarks and / or trademarks are such that can be considered as household names, but it’s not just one thing that you slap on the IPO in an easy way — filing these things take a lot of time, cash, blood in the nose (since everything you’ll have to file shall be in legalese, with an overdose of walls of text) and sweat (because they need you to come to their office to file for a claim), but you can file one online. It also has classifications with a nice name, which is the Nice Classification. Most trademarks last for a decade upon registration.

Without further adieu, let’s begin.

Anime

When I tried to search “anime” in the field, I was very much surprised that there is now an application for “Anime Festival Asia” to be trademarked (lodged just last April) and I checked in the file record, it’s the main organizer Sozo Pte. Ltd. who filed it through a local law firm. We’ve talked about AFA and their pending visit to Manila, so chances are AFA PHL may come soon enough, probably by next year. Those who were disapointed when Animax Carnival Philippines 2013 was cancelled weeks before the December 8 date should be bracing for more impact soon.

We posted this with an image on our Facebook as soon as I saw that.

Remember Hero TV‘s segments Anime 101, AniMyx and Anime of the Month? They’re also trademarked under Creative Programs, Inc., which owns the cable channel.

Ozine, our partner Anime Alliance, Anime Overload Festival (which is the first anime event I’ve been to), Telesuccess Productions’ Anime Club (I didn’t knew they owned the name), and even Mr. Softy was included in the results.

Cosplay

Save Cosplay.ph for the Cosplay wordmarks — we’ve seen that before — what we should look up now is that Hero Face-Off: The Ultimate Cosplay Battle now has a record in the IPO. Looking at the document registered, it says there the following:

  • Disclaimer: NO CLAIM IS MADE TO THE EXCLUSIVE RIGHT TO USE THE PHRASE “THE ULTIMATE COSPLAY BATTLE” APART FROM THE MARK AS SHOWN.
  • Status: Published for opposition

I wonder what that means. We need assistance from the patent attorneys.

Otaku

Nothing to see here though — both of them are Ozine, which we have introduced to you before.

Now that we’ve revealed something about these, it’s your turn to (ab)use the IPO trademark Search located at the IPO PHL website. We’ve shared you this piece of reference knowing that this might help you in some way or another.

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Cosplay Ranking System: Not just for bragging rights?

Days ago, Cosplay.ph announced the creation of their Cosplay Ranking System, in which the participants in Cosplay.ph-organized masquerades will be ranked according to their skill and experience.

In this post, Deremoe will observe the developments in regards to this new system that is said to be based on international guidelines from its announcement to its formal launch and implementation at the 6th Philippine Cosplay Convention this March at Robinsons Place Manila.

CRS in the community’s perspective

The objective of CRS is to motivate those who are new to the Cosplay community to enjoy it. Unfortunately, the announcement was welcomed with negative reactions and skepticism — bad reactions from the community sprouted throughout the next few days. These include reactions from Mike Abundo, a staunch detractor of the organization.

“First, they trademark the art, then they mark the artists.” 

Mike Abundo, on a comment posted at Deremoe’s Facebook page.

Aside from Abundo’s comments, a Facebook user brought up the issue, saying:

[…] Let’s say a really awesome cosplayer (like me, ahahaha /gets shot) hasn’t joined a contest before nor registered. Thus, he/she would get dumped into the beginner rank. Wouldn’t he/she be an overkill, which would defeat the purpose of giving newbs a chance to win?

SnowfallSlasher, on her personal Facebook.

CRS in the organizers’ perspective

In regards to the announcement, Deremoe was able to speak with the head of Cosplay.ph, Pablo Bairan.

Q: When this system is being planned, what is the organization’s mindset when they started creating it?
Bairan: The goal of the CRS is to help group cosplayers of the same caliber together, and to encourage beginners to try their hand at competitions without the fear of not getting a prize or recognition for their efforts simply because the field of competition is dominated by more experienced cosplayers. Beginners will also be able to climb through the ranks, providing them extra motivation and giving them the drive to improve their Cosplay skills without being overshadowed by much more experienced competitors.

Q: Aside from implementing the system in events organized by Cosplay.ph, is there any chance that it will be implemented in events outside Cosplay.ph’s reach?
Bairan: There is accreditation for events outside those of Cosplay.ph, although we would first have to study the competition first to ensure that the standards are up to par with other CRS Contests. We will never impose this accreditation on other events, however.

Q: What do you think of the system five years from now?
Bairan: In the next five years, there will likely be a more even distribution of Beginners, Intermediate and Veteran competitors. Likely, there will be competitions for all 3 Ranks in the same event with the appropriate prizes and recognition based on each Rank. Competition will be fiercer in the higher ranks and more casual in the lower ranks. Veteran rank Cosplayers will also tend to help out Beginner Cosplayers more also since they will not be competing with them in the same contest.

CRS in contrast to International Guidelines

As stated earlier, this is said to be based on the guidelines set up by the International Costumers Guild, with the similar aim of providing fair play — but in contrast to the CRS, they have a clause, as writen:

There is no committee or organization that tracks all costumers’ wins for placement purposes. It’s not practical or even possible. There are just too many competitions happening around the world. An entrant’s placement in any division is based on a combination of the honor system and the discretion of the Masquerade director.

ICG Guidelines: Ensuring Fair Competition, http://www.costume.org/documents/fairness.html, visited 11 February 2013

Is the best yet to come?

With the start of the Cosplay Ranking System, will the Cosplay community be better, or it will go to its dark ages as being predicted by some people? In my honest opinion, this might spark arrogance among Cosplayers, and it might lead to arguments for bragging rights. On a second thought, this can motivate newcomers to be competitive. Either way, we are still unsure of what will happen next — and we’ll wait for updates from our end and document it for you, that’s for sure.

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On the Otaku Expo, the Community and the SM Megamall Incident.

(Originally published at Deremoe on January 28, 2013.)

I was doing my work when this happened — two guys in plain white shirts wrecked a stall inside The SM (Department) Store at the building B of SM Megamall in Mandaluyong. What gives? Otaku Expo is ongoing at the Megatrade Hall 1, as previously covered by yours truly. What’s the relation of the incident to the event? It happened on the same day — and everyone was all locked up in their respective places for safety — shutters were pulled down, and nobody was allowed to get out of the place. Panic ensues.

Then there were news that people in costume were involved in the heist. Without any hesitation, the one/s who handle/s local radio station DZMM’s Twitter account tweeted it, saying that Cosplayers played a role in the said heist — just because they spoke to a girl who must be traumatized. They must’ve deleted it, but most of us got it in screenshots. Good job, guys. The community has been slapped again because of your carelessness. I can’t help but to lash out on you, mainstream media. But yes, I shall thank one of your comrades for correcting you, that these Cosplayers were innocent and those who are in plain white shirts are the culprits.

Nevertheless, it won’t change the minds of those who first saw your tweets. Now, because of what you did, what might happen to our community now that the news has been spread, with added exaggeration?

First, those parents of the attendees of Otaku Expo who was terribly worried for their safety would tell these guys to stop going and/or stop Cosplaying because they was injected by the thought that some Cosplayers are bloody criminals in disguise, which is not true — and if we found out that one of us are criminals, we’ll go beat him up like an angry mob because he has tainted the happy vibes of the community with his/her selfish manners, which is what happens when someone gets featured on Gamertotoy.com (a blog about the communities’ negative sides) for his bad deeds.

You can’t simply change your parent’s perspectives when they see these things, and I’m afraid that they might think that you are rebelling against them if you still proceed — tl;dr it’s inevitable that you’ll get into arguments.

Second, the event gets cancelled (which already happened, in the case of Otaku Expo 2013’s day 2 cancellation) or postponed to a later date until the ruckus gets erased from the memories of those who saw these happening and move on from it. Less events for the next two quarters, perhaps?

Third, what else — the community is in a negative light once more, and I believe that we have no PR officers to correct these disasters aside from ourselves, although we can’t please everybody, it seems.

On the suspects, why the bloody hell do you have to schedule your heist with our event? Maybe some of us are scared, but I still think of an angry mob of vigilantes that will hunt you, so to say. Nothing else follows, so take a wild guess.

On the security, for goodness sakes please mind the places in the body where people can hide guns without you noticing it. Better yet, make a bloody plea to the mall management to buy security scanners. It’s worth it, I tell you.

For those guys at the hardware where the hammer was bought, especially to the cashier clerk, let me guess — you can be a witness to the case. Ask the police to guard you at all costs. Don’t die yet for me — and perhaps us.

On another perspective, we can think of this as a coincidence, or an unfortunate incident that is beyond our control, and I am just thinking from a totally conservative side and just move on. We are simply not aware that this will happen, and we can do nothing about it but to suffer the consequences we are given in this kind of situation.

So, I have said too much about this incident that might change the people’s perspective on the community once more. This will mark another exciting year in the community of anime fans, convention-goers and cosplayers alike.