A nearby community to me started a theater group a couple of years back and named themselves the Damon Runyon Repertory Company since the town (with some right) claims to be the famous author’s hometown.
Apparently recently the reportory company with fundraisers and grants purchased an old theater and rechristened it the Damon Runyon Theater to serve as their home for productions.
Having worked most of my life in the theater, I had worked with an old radio actor who appeared on the original “Damon Runyon Theater” radio program so I knew the name had been used before (I vaguely remember a television series with the same name too).
When I was visiting with one of the board members of the theater a couple of evenings ago, I asked her how hard it was to get an OK to use the old radio program’s name and she looked at me with great fear and said, “We didn’t even try. We didn’t know about the radio program” (so much for the golden age of radio).
She asked me to check on the legal right to the name and I said I would try, but it turns out my old acting companion died a few years ago. I tried a search google search of “Damon Runyon Theater” but all I got were listings of the different episodes of the program.
Does anyone have a suggestion as to the correct direction to take to resolve this?
A visit to the U.S. Copyright Office website may at least give you some information on copyright laws. IIRC they also provide on-line access to a register of copyrighted stuff. But be aware that the register is not complete or completely accurate, since nowadays registration is not required for acquiring copyright (and possibly also for transfer of copyright).
Since “Damon Runyon Theater” is a title, it can’t be copyrighted. Titles are not protected by copyright.
It’s possible it was trademarked; you can search the trademark office’s database at http://www.uspto.gov. A quick search brings up only two trademarks with “Runyon” in them, and neither has “Damon” in the name.
So it’s likely the show was never trademarked, or if it was, the trademark had lapsed.
In any case, naming a theater after Damon Runyon is not likely to be a trademark violation; the trademark holders would have to assert that the name creates confusion with the Radio/TV show and since the show are long forgotten, that’s a pretty weak point.
There is an issue of using a dead celebrity’s name, but the law on that is still being determined.
I seriously doubt there’d be any trouble. I am surprised that they didn’t think to contact the estate as a courtesy, though.