Check #4 on the list...

[Leon]

Top 6 most ridiculous things people claimed to legally own, with something rather familiar at number 4...

http://www.cracked.com/article_20559_the-6-most-ridiculous-things-people-claimed-to-legally-own.html

[Steve J]

Remember someone posted something about this earlier this year. GW just go from bad to worse...

[Fenton]

Poor Spike Milliagan

[Lord Kermit of Birkenhead]

Not even GW can out-spend Microsoft.....

IanS

[Hertsblue]

Daftest thing I've heard since IBM tried to copyright their logo and were bluntly told by the courts that they couldn't copyright initials. 

[Bernie]

Didn't someone try to trademark "orc"?

[Lord Kermit of Birkenhead]

o - Ork......orc is old Saxon for monster.

IanS

[Hertsblue]

Ah, that's where Tolkien got it from. 

[Last Hussar]

If I could afford it I'd bring out a range of figures called Imperial Space-Guard Marines

[Fenton]

Ah, that's where Tolkien got it from. 

Its where he got most of his stuff from

[Lord Kermit of Birkenhead]

And his tobacco.

IanS 

[Steve J]

Well after all he was a Professor of Anglo-Saxon literature (or something along those lines) .

[Wulf]

Was that film 'Nessie' Disney? They reputedly tried to claim legal rights to that name... And I'm sure I've heard of more than one cafe run by someone called McDonald being told they couldn't use their own name...

[Fenton]

Burger King is known as Hungry Jacks in Australia, as the name was being used by a small burger bar there when the American giant arrived, they took the owner to court and lost , hence Hungry Jacks

[Kiwidave]

Harrods (London) had a go at a shop in NZ a while back of the same name (a chemist I think - something completely unrelated to the Harrods anyway) - in protest the entire town renamed all the shops to Harrods for a day

Also, a restaurant in the South Island was called McDonalds (as that was the owner's name) and McDs tried to sue him - failed miserably

Hurrah for the little guy