>>1410751Again, your confusing a trademark with copywrite. Lets use the example given on the site.
> the unauthorized use of FERRARI as a brand of harmonicas may not be trademark infringement, but it may be trademark dilution, even though harmonicas and luxury automobiles are so unrelated that consumers are unlikely to believe Ferrari harmonicas come from the famous automaker. Ferrari is a brand, if you used the Ferrari logo you would be infringing on the brands trademark. Sony is a brand, to use their logo in your work such as Sony pizza would be trademark delusion. An IP is not a brand, if it were then a single brand could trademark troll every design or concept they could ever come up with. Nintendo having the ability to trademark their IP's would eliminate all competition as they could state other basic concepts such as platformer, run and gun, adventure game are owned by them. The only way to legally protect a game idea is to file a patent which can only cover a small and unique area of gameplay.
It's a legal grey area, in the case of my first post the changes made to the mascot of the store do not represent the one seen in the Super Mario Brothers games and would be legally distinctive to use as a character. As for why they removed the mascot, it's likely to make a more distinctive brand that could be advertised on a larger scale.
It's a fine line to walk which is why it's not as common. For contrast here's an illegal example. The character art was stolen from Paper Mario. Nintendo could sue for copywrite infringement, as the ART was taken not the concept of Mario itself. They cannot file for Trademark Disillusion unless they created a well known company named Super Mario Bros, which they have not.
