The Lion joins the Jungle: Amazon acquires MGM studios, and how MGM paved the way for sound marks in Canada

Amazon.com Inc. recently announced it was joining forces with Meto-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) studios in an acquisition for $8.5 billion to bolster its intellectual property portfolio and original content for its online streaming service, Prime Video.

 

The streaming wars have continued to rage on and this is only the latest move by some of the TV-streaming giants—namely Netflix, Apple, Disney and Amazon, with an honourable mention for HBO—to offer the widest selection of titles as they try to knock the crown off Netflix and stake their claim as the biggest streaming service in town.

 

MGM studios is of course the beloved Beverly Hills movie studio founded in 1924, itself a creature of mergers between Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures, and Louis B. Mayer Pictures. The studio can be instantly recognized by what is arguably one of the most iconic trademarks of all time—the roaring lion, their mascot Leo. A fun fact is that MGM was one of the last studios to switch to sound pictures from silent productions, meaning that their lion only actually got its roar in 1928.

 

During my research for this post I found out that Leo’s roar was actually instrumental in paving the way for sound trademarks in Canada! In a write-up by TrademarksPatentLaywer.com, the author goes onto explain how a longstanding attempt to trademark Leo’s roar by MGM studios in Canada led to a court order almost 20 years later that changed a longstanding position by the Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO).

 

MGM originally tried to register the lion’s roar in 1992 with a spectrogram, an audio recording, and a video recording of the roar. The application faced regulatory backlash as CIPO refused to register trademark applications that consisted only of sound marks. Another attempt in 2010 by the studio was rejected on the same basis in that the application lacked any drawings or accurate representations of the sound. MGM later appealed this decision and in 2012 a Federal Court issued a court order directing CIPO to approve Leo’s roar as a trademark. This court order led to CIPO revising their guidelines for applicants when applying for sound trademarks, which then allowed a drawing that graphically represents the sound, a description of the sound, and an electronic recording of the sound. This Federal Order later led other companies like Intel Corporation and Toys’R’Us to register for their own sound mark applications.

 

MGM is the studio behind household names like the James Bond film catalogue, Rocky, The Wizard of Oz, and The Silence of the Lambs. With Amazon spending $465 million on the Lord of the Rings television show alone, there is no telling what projects could be in the works with the new trove of IP gained by the tech giant in this deal. Amazon’s SVP of Prime Video Mike Hopkins was quoted saying “The real financial value behind this deal is the treasure trove of IP in the deep catalogue that we plan to reimagine and develop together with MGM’s talented team. Its very exciting and provides so many opportunities for high-quality story telling.”

 

In my mind this acquisition has a lot in common with Microsoft’s purchase of Activision. Both deals are likely driven by the need for creative content for each companies’ respective platforms, streaming and gaming respectively. MGM had previously filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2010, and with the recent departure of one of its co-CEOs, was likely an attractive acquisition target for one of the streaming giants. While Amazon cleared regulatory hurdles from the European Commission and the US’ Federal Trade Commission for antitrust concerns and competition in the markets, this deal can be seen as part of a wider trend of IP consolidation within the markets as long-term standalone business strategy/integrity is being questioned in the face of the pandemic and other significant market events.

 

If you want to do further reading on the matter, I’ve linked some articles I drew from as well as the piece from TrademarksPatentLawyers.com. In particular, I thought the Variety piece was an excellent description of all the moving parts of the situation, so I saved it for last. Thanks for reading!

 

Source(s):

https://globalnews.ca/news/8690471/amazon-closes-mgm-deal/

https://trademarkspatentslawyer.com/trademark-law-firm/

https://www.npr.org/2022/03/17/1087268067/amazon-mgm-deal

https://variety.com/2022/film/news/amazon-mgm-james-bond-whats-next-1235208070/