User blog comment:Titanollante/Zilla 1998 is Godzilla/@comment-24572700-20141129042050

I should probably note that Toho can't actively alter Zilla's trademarks due to a few reasons:

A) TriStar licensed it off to many different companies for merchandising use, some of which are defunct (such as Trendmasters), which means it's more difficult for Toho to secure the trademarks for use.

B) Toho only partially owns the rights to the '98 media, so they'd have to get TriStar's consent to change anything in regards to the movie's title, the TV show's title or anything like that...and you also can't change a high-profile movie and it's spinoff series and toyline's title almost a decade after they released. :p

C) The trademarks of the 1998 Baby Godzilla were reabsorbed into the 1993 trademark by Toho; what I think Keith is trying to say is that the 1998 Godzilla trademarks were reabsorbed into the original Godzilla trademark, hence why there's no legal distinction. The 1998 Godzilla copyright is expired, but it's also been absorbed into the pre-existing trademark.

Problem, though, is that Zilla is similar enough to the 1998 design to have it under that umbrella; but obviously Toho hasn't scrapped the Zilla copyright. So.....what do they do, here? There's no point to having a redundant copyright, though I suppose the 2004 design is different enough to warrant it's own copyright...but then they also reused the 1998 copyright icon for the 2004 logo, except the 1998 design is supposedly still Godzilla and-ow my head hurts. >_<

Something tells me that not even Toho is certain about the 1998/2004 relation; Tomiyama said he renamed the 1998 creature, but Matt Frank says that they don't make distinction between 1998 and Zilla aside from title; which I interpret as meaning that they basically consider them the same character with two different names, much like Showa Mogera and Heisei Moguera are.

And since ROE uses the 1998 design under the 2004 name (which, if they were separate trademarks, would probably be impossible), I'm inclined to agree with Matt on this; that 1998 Godzilla and 2004 Zilla are the same character with a different name.

Well, not continuity-wise, but you catch my drift. :p