True crime documentary miniseries Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness has become a global phenomenon, watched by more than 34 million viewers in the first 10 days of its release on Netflix. Happily for IP professionals, one of the subplots revolved around a trademark and copyright conflict. In this guest piece, Haynes and Boone Associate Joe Lawlor expands on the IP disputes and how they played out.
There are some plot spoilers in the article, so if you have not yet watched the series (and intend to), it is worth hitting pause on this piece and doing so before reading.
Guest analysis
Netflix’s Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem, and Madness is a wild docuseries that explores the life and psyche of Joseph Allen Maldonado-Passage – also known as Joe Exotic, the owner of the GW Zoo, a big cat park (think lions, tigers and more) in Oklahoma. Over its seven episodes, Tiger King covers murder, polyamory, cults, country music videos, animal rights, FBI investigations, political campaigns, expired meat, drug use and a lot of crime. Also revenge. We learn that members of the big cat community are high on revenge.
Several federal IP lawsuits brought against Exotic by Carole Baskin, the owner of a rival big cat park, are at the heart of episode four of the series. These lawsuits fundamentally alter the path for Tiger King’s protagonist, and it is worth delving a bit deeper into these disputes to understand how Exotic winds up in a world of hurt.
Excerpted from World Trademark Review. To read the full article, click here.