A Signed Consent From Godzilla's Owner Wasn't Enough — Here's Why

Here's a strange one. A company licensed to make Godzilla movies tried to register the film title GODZILLA X KONG: THE NEW EMPIRE as a trademark. Toho — the Japanese studio that created Godzilla and owns the character — signed a consent agreement saying it was fine. The Trademark Office still said no.

In In re Legend IP Holdings Production, LLC, Serial Nos. 97914992 et al. (TTAB Aug. 13, 2026) [not precedential], the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board affirmed the refusal of twelve trademark applications covering the film title. The goods spanned film production and a long list of merchandise. Every one of the twelve was refused for likelihood of confusion with Toho's earlier GODZILLA registrations — over the objection of Toho itself.

The applicant, an affiliate of Legendary Pictures (which makes the Godzilla films under license from Toho), submitted a License and Consent Agreement signed by all three parties. The agreement established that Toho owns the Godzilla IP, that Legendary is Toho's licensee, and that Legend IP could register the title and would hold the marks "in trust for Toho." And that was about it — roughly half a page of terms, with signature blocks filling out the rest of the page.

The Board called the agreement a "naked" consent, "too bare and conclusory," suggesting "at best, a general agreement between the parties, not a detailed one." The consent got only slight weight, and the refusals stood.

If you’re a business owner, don’t shrug this off as a Hollywood story. This is how consent agreements work for everyone. When the trademark examiner refuses your application over someone else’s earlier mark, the most common fix is to get that registrant to sign a consent agreeing to coexistence. The USPTO usually gives such consents great weight — but, as this case shows, not blindly.

Why this matters

First, the Board grades consents on substance, not signatures. The TTAB weighs five considerations in judging a consent, and this agreement satisfied only the first: both parties signed it. It said nothing about trade channels, placed no limits on either party’s field of use, contained no undertaking to prevent or address confusion, and — because the marks weren’t in use yet — could point to no history of peaceful coexistence in the marketplace. It also consented only to registration, not to use. A signature without substance tells the Board who agreed, but nothing about why the public won’t be confused.

Second, the other factors don’t argue themselves. The applicant promised “a detailed comparison of all relevant DuPont factors” in its Office Action response — then argued only the consent. It never disputed the similarity of the marks, the relatedness of the goods, or the channels of trade, and its appeal brief called the consent the “sole issue.” The Board took that at face value: GODZILLA is entirely subsumed in the applied-for mark, making the marks “highly similar”; the goods were identical or legally identical in eleven of the twelve applications and related in the twelfth; the trade channels overlapped. A thin consent can’t carry a refusal when every other factor is conceded. And arguments you skip before the examiner generally can’t be raised for the first time on appeal.

Third, the Board is really asking one question: will consumers be confused? This is the same principle we saw in the Sycuan cancellation case covered in this space last week — the Board looks at substance, not form. There, the substance was an immunity maneuver masking ordinary nonuse and naked licensing; here, it’s a consent that says "we agree" without saying why confusion won’t happen. In both cases, the Board refused to let paperwork stand in for the real question.

How to apply it in practice

• Build your consent agreement around confusion, not consent. A bare "we consent" is nearly worthless. Include real coexistence terms: describe each party’s trade channels, limit fields of use if needed, add a mutual commitment to cooperate in good faith to prevent confusion and remedy any that arises, and consent to use as well as registration. One good-faith cooperation sentence alone can satisfy a whole consideration.

• Argue every DuPont factor, not just the consent. A consent is evidence under one factor of the thirteen-factor likelihood-of-confusion test. Draft the response as if the consent might fail: address the marks, the goods and services, the channels of trade, and the purchasers. If the consent is the only arrow in the quiver and the Board discounts it, the refusal stands.

• Don’t file intent-to-use applications and hope the consent does the lifting. Coexistence history is one of the Board’s five considerations, and an intent-to-use applicant has none by definition. If your marks aren’t in the market yet, your consent needs even more substance elsewhere — the Board can’t rely on years of peaceful coexistence to do the work for you.

The parties had everything on paper: the registrant’s blessing, a licensee relationship, an authorized film. Twelve applications still failed. The Board didn’t doubt the business relationship — the parties just never explained why the public wouldn’t be confused, and the applicant left every other factor uncontested. A consent agreement is evidence, not magic.