And the next level of commercialization is...

[Bêthberry]

What I'm (mildly) curious about is that little TM after each name. Who owns the trademark on the characters' names? Lego? New Line etc? The Estate?

[Morthoron]

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

What I'm (mildly) curious about is that little TM after each name. Who owns the trademark on the characters' names? Lego? New Line etc? The Estate?

Those are trademarked by the estate and used under license at Lego. I remember in the 70s or 80s Gary Gygax getting sued by the estate for using the term "Hobbit" in his Dungeons and Dragons game. Gygax had to change the character to "Halfling".

[Mithalwen]

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

What I'm (mildly) curious about is that little TM after each name. Who owns the trademark on the characters' names? Lego? New Line etc? The Estate?

I thought most of the names were the TMs of the Saul Zaentz co trading as Tolkien Entreprises not the estate but that may have changes since last time.

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

What I'm (mildly) curious about is that little TM after each name. Who owns the trademark on the characters' names? Lego? New Line etc? The Estate?

Depends. TMs are usually licensed to the various manufacturers by the creators/brand owners. Most Doctor Who toys are trademarked to the BBC, except Daleks, which are trademarked to Terry Nation. So it depends on whether the Estate have released the rights or not. And it will be different in each country. To further complicate things, LEGO is a Danish company and that's a highly protected brand in itself (LEGO, not Denmark, that is). Character Building toys are made to be LEGO compatible but they cannot say this on any of their packaging.

I remember looking at my brother's D&D books and I used to get confused why they called all the Hobbits 'halflings'!