A French woman is the mother of all trademark battles with DC Comics over parenting app Wondermum | DC Comics

A French woman is partnering with DC Comics to name her family advice app Wondermum.

Lise Soberon received a letter from the superhero comic book company’s French lawyers on April 1 of this year demanding that she stop using the name due to its alleged similarity to Wonder Woman.

“When I got the message, I called my close friends and said, ‘So funny, guys,’ thinking it was an April Fools’ joke,” she said. “Then I called the law firm and realized it wasn’t a joke. They told me that DC Comics objected to the name Wondermum.”

Soberon, 43, who visits schools to talk about bullying, is a hero to parents and children in Caen in Normandy, where her company is based. The app provides local listings for family activities and workshops as well as tips and a chat room. She insists that her creation does not resemble the fictional Wonder Woman.

Sobéron’s Wondermum does not wear a starry red, gold, or blue outfit but rather a white shirt, blue pants, and red high-heeled heels, with not a headpiece in sight. It sports a pink and purple hexagonal logo containing the letters WM, but Wondermum is a single word – unlike Wonder Woman – and uses the British spelling of “mum”, not the American “mom”.

“As far as I know, DC Comics doesn’t have the word ‘wonder,'” Soberon said. “I could have called up the app Maman MerviliousBut it doesn’t have the same ring to it.”

Soberon said her 11-year-old daughter, Lou, came up with the name after her father, Lounis, died of the rare neurodegenerative disorder, Charcot disease, in 2020, at the age of 36.

“She told me I was a really great mom, a real superhero, better than a cartoon character because I exist and they don’t. How can I change the name then?” Soberon said. “The goal of the site is to help parents, and 80% of the site’s users are mothers, many of whom are raising their children alone like me. We are all superheroes but we don’t have powers, and that’s all there is to it.”

The former financial adviser added: “It was very stressful, I lost 8kg [18lbs] In six months. “We are not talking about acquiring a local store, but about an American giant.”

She said most of her income now goes to paying her lawyers to fight this mother of all battles. Last month, I created a crowdfunding campaign.

“At first I didn’t want to ask for money. I felt like I was begging and I felt proud. But now everything I earn goes to legal fees. My lawyer is a friend, so she doesn’t charge me a fortune, but she can’t work for free,” Soberon said.

“they [DC Comics] You want me to remove everything from the site: the name, graphics and logo. It took me two years to develop the app. You have already invested a lot of money and taken out a loan. I realized it would cost me between 20,000 and 30,000 euros [£17,500 and £26,000] To rename and redesign it.”

Anne-Laure Boileau, Soberon’s attorney, said she was accused of registering and using a trademark that DC Comics — owned by Warner Bros. and also home to Batman and Superman — says conflicts with its Wonder Woman trademark.

“It basically criticizes the similarities between the two brands but the only similarity is the prefix ‘wonder’,” Boileau told French television. “Apart from this prefix and apart from the reference to women, there are no visual or graphic similarities and, above all, we are dealing with completely different concepts.”

Paris-based Beau de Loménie, the European and French patent lawyers working for DC Comics, did not respond to The Guardian’s requests for a response.

However, the lawyer in charge of the company’s case told Le Parisien in April: “This is a matter of infringement of the intellectual and industrial property rights held by DC Comics. My client is a company that has invested heavily in its intellectual property rights and wishes to preserve them. There is no intention to harm this lady and, in fact, DC Comics is taking an amicable approach in trying to reach an agreement.”

Soberon said DC Comics did not propose any solutions other than changing the name of the app and removing the graphics.

“I really don’t know why they do this,” she said. “It’s a real battle between David and Goliath, and I just hope I can win it.”