And the next level of commercialization is...

[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'!