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Ocean Outdoor win 2 year legal tussle over The Two Towers Lord of the Rings trademark

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By John Glenday | Reporter

February 3, 2014 | 2 min read

Ocean Outdoor has won the right to name two sets of advertising towers as ‘The Two Towers’; following a protracted two year rights battle with a Hollywood firm which claimed ownership of the phrase made famous in JRR Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings tales.

Hollywood rights firm Saul Zaentz had asserted its ownership of the contested title as it currently owns the intellectual property rights to The Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit, leading it to contest that Ocean had infringed its rights.

This was rejected by the intellectual property office however; as were separate claims that Ocean had used the name detrimentally to the ‘distinctive character’ of the films.

Ocean marketing director Richard Malton, said: “We took on Hollywood and we won,” he says. “We have never tried to pass off our two towers as either Orthanc or Minus Morgul – I’m not sure it would have helped us attract the type of brands that we look to engage with.

“We vigorously defended our right to use the Two Towers as a name for our iconic locations and luckily, common sense has prevailed. The irony wasn’t lost on us – the small being pushed around by the big. But as we all know, Frodo wins in the end!”

Ocean is now claiming costs against SZC for the time and cost of defending its action.

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Ocean Outdoor

Having created the Digital Out of Home (DOOH) category in 2005, Ocean has pioneered, driven and established DOOH to be the engaging media channel that it is today, accounting for circa 50% of all OOH spend. Ocean delivers an advertising channel that exceeds the traditional OOH market through merging the inherent branding strengths of OOH and enhancing through location, audience, research, data and unique technology. Ocean is the pioneer in DOOH advertising technology, leading a new wave of creative solutions through its Ocean Labs division including proprietary solutions such as Vehicle Detection Technology, SimplyFi (Wi-Fi Sponsorship), LookOut Facial Detection Technology and Augmented Reality Ocean sees digital marketing, in all its forms, as a companion, not a competitor. The most progressive of modern marketers is one that understands the combination of the accuracy and accountability of digital, and the impact, trust & fame building abilities delivered by the overtness of out-of-home, is a winning formula in today’s cluttered advertising market.

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