Wired has a greatly informative piece on the litigious and protective nature of Toho Co. Ltd., the rightsholder to Godzilla, and quick they are to protect their piece of IP.


Hurling hundreds of lawsuits and takedown notices like so many fireballs, Godzilla’s owner — Toho Co. Ltd — has roasted Hollywood studios, automakers, toy manufacturers, rock bands, book publishers, national food chains, record labels, bloggers, wineries and just about anybody seen as capitalizing on the monster’s unique features, name or theme music. When it comes to policing trademarks and enforcing copyrights in the United States, intellectual property attorneys say Tokyo-based Toho is easily a match for Walt Disney, Fox and Lucasfilm in terms of courthouse zeal.

“I think they have got litigation in their reptilian DNA,” says Jonathan Handel, a Hollywood IP lawyer. “They’re afraid that their intellectual property rights will suffer the same fate that Tokyo has in many Godzilla movies.”