Holy Bat Ruling! Court Says No to Batmobile Knockoffs

A federal appeals court panel today let stand a previous finding that the owner of a Los Angeles auto shop copied the essence of the Batmobile and that the heavily armored, gadget-laden crime-fighting vehicle of cartoons, TV and movies is deserving of copyright protection.

In the opinion, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in Pasadena affirmed a 2013 ruling that Gotham Garage operator Mark Towle infringed on Warner subsidiary DC Comics’ Batmobile trademark.

Writing for the three-judge panel, Judge Sandra Ikuta opined, “As Batman so sagely told Robin, ‘In our well-ordered society, protection of private property is essential.”’

Towle had appealed the previous decision, arguing that Warners’ ability to halt reproductions would have “a significant impact on automobile makers and manufacturers.”

Ikuta concluded, however, that “the Batmobile character is the property of DC, and Towle infringed upon DC’s property rights when he produced unauthorized derivative works of the Batmobile as it appeared in the 1966 television show and the 1989 motion picture.”

The court further found that the Batmobile “was entitled to copyright protection because this automotive character was a sufficiently distinctive element of the works.”

Towle could not immediately be reached for comment.

City News Service; Wikimedia Commons