HOLLYWOOD, Calif. — Leading parody studio X-Play announced that it has been granted a trademark with the United States Patent and Trademark Office for usage of the word ‘Not’ in adult movie titles.
After two years of attempts and precedents including high profile movies such as "Not the Bradys XXX," "Not Bewitched XXX," "Not the Cosbys XXX," "Not Married with Children XXX," "Not Airplane XXX: Flight Attendants," and many others, the company said it can now protect itself from infringing studios wishing to capitalize on the name X-Play has created.
“We had to gently ask companies over the past year or so not to use the word ‘Not’ in their adult movie titles and a few companies agreed and changed their titles particularly those in the parody arena,” said Jeff Mullen president of X-Play.
“However with the proliferation and popularity of the porn parody by so many companies it became more important than ever to protect our Not…XXX brand and we now have legal rights to keep others from using the word ‘not’ especially at the beginning of their movie title,” Mullen added.
X-Play maintained that recent movies such as “Not Really the Dukes of Hazard” and “Not Another Porn Movie” produced by other companies are examples of titles that will not be able to continue in sequels with their present titles. “Not Really Taxi” is another.
“We will not take any action against our friends in the industry that have already released movies using the word ‘not,’ especially since we elected to remain quiet as our final stages of trademark acceptance were completed but anybody planning new movies or sequels should think up another title without using the word ‘not,’” Mullen said.
Mullen, who directs under the name Will Ryder said that a few executives doubted the trademark would be granted but still changed their titles. “We appreciate that but now we have been granted the trademark. I was not aware of the “Dukes” parody until they had already printed up artwork so we really didn’t want to make a big deal of it because we are friends with everybody at that company, and who knows we might do business with them one day soon,” he said.
Mullen continued, “New Sensations has their brand of adult parody titles, Hustler has their unique title prefix, Devils has theirs, Zero Tolerance and PopPorn have theirs and others go out of their way to make sure they create their own identify. But the use of the word ‘Not’ should now be avoided.”
