A recent court ruling has decided to cancel the joint-ownership Marvel and DC share over the trademarked phrase “SUPER HERO”.

The ruling was the result of an objection by independent comic creator S.J. Richold and the company Superbabies Limited. Recently, the Superbabies comic faced opposition from DC comics for their use of the word super hero, prompting a review of the phrase’s status of a trademark.

Thanks to the work of law firm Reichman Jorgensen Lehman & Feldberg, the courts decided to remove the trademark. Especially since Marvel and DC spared no resources to defend their ownership.

Richold’s argument was that the term “SUPER HERO” has become genre-defining, and the ownership of Marvel and DC has allegedly been used to stifle independent creators and shut down competition.

You can read the full ruling here.

While the super hero genre has gotten by just fine skirting around the trademark, this will ideally open up creators to freely use the term without fearing consequences from DC or Disney.