united-states copyright trademark
How well can characters be protected?
<p>There are lots of attributes that are better covered by either a copyright or trademark, but suppose there is a business that makes movies, short films or games or comics uses and "Darth Vader" in their project (without permission) but visually makes them look very different. Does Lucasfilm's or Disney's (or whoever owns IP for Star Wars) copyrights protect against that usage? </p>

<p>If we were just dealing with an image or just dealing with a name, the answer would be clearer, but Darth Vader or Luke Skywalker or R2D2 (or other SW characters) are overall characters, not just an image nor just a name, but I don't know if it's a necessity that for such a name to be trademarked. </p>

<p>Copyright law will not protect the name. Trademark law will. </p>

<p>A character as a whole in a copyrighted work can be protected by a copyright. If you create a work using a character with the same name, <strong>and</strong> similar characteristics, including physical description, style of expression, type of action, etc, then your work may well be considered a derivative work of the original one(s) where the character appears, as so be an infringement of the copyright on that work (or works). In fact a character which copies several but not all of those things might be enough to cause a copyright issue.  However the name alone, if used for a character quite different in description, manner, etc, would not infringe copyright. </p>

<p>However, if the name is a trademark (and I strongly suspect that "Darth Vader" and 'Luke Skywalker" are so protected), then use of it to sell good or services, including a book or film, might well be trademark infringement. </p>
