History of the Enterprise Flagship revealed?

[Gotham Central]

Sci wrote:

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No, it makes sense. Any work that features a prominent fictional spaceship named Enterprise is treading on ice CBS/Paramount already owns; they should pick their own name if they want a spaceship. (And it's probably a trademark, not a copyright.)

I think that this is the genesis of the ongoing joke in Stargate about not naming things Enterprise. Its an interesting question to think about. Obviously CBS/Paramount cannot possibly own the rights to the designation "USS Enterprise" since that would belong to the US Navy. In Stargate all of the American ships from earth carry the USS prefix from the real world navy. Thus had they ever chosen to use Enterprise, it would be the "USS Enterprise." Of course, in universe, that would be the real reason they could not use the name...it would already be in use by the navy.

[Timo]

Well, USN fairly recently operated the namesakes of Stargate's USS Apollo and USS Daedalus at least. And the name Enterprise is going to be liberated soon!

Many of the ships in Star Trek have their USN counterparts, too, and I don't really see them asking the Navy for permission. Either now, or back in the days of TOS when basically every starship bore the name of a famous naval vessel.

Timo Saloniemi

[black_dranzer]

Gotham Central wrote:

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I think that this is the genesis of the ongoing joke in Stargate about not naming things Enterprise. Its an interesting question to think about. Obviously CBS/Paramount cannot possibly own the rights to the designation "USS Enterprise" since that would belong to the US Navy. In Stargate all of the American ships from earth carry the USS prefix from the real world navy. Thus had they ever chosen to use Enterprise, it would be the "USS Enterprise." Of course, in universe, that would be the real reason they could not use the name...it would already be in use by the navy.

Stargate's ships were operated by the US Air Force not the Navy, so would they not have the USAF prefix?

[Sci]

Mr. Laser Beam wrote:

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What if it's not prominent? Just some random ship in the background?

Then presumably, it would be the equivalent of that little glimpse of the Millennium Falcon flying in the background of the Battle of Sector 001 in ST:FC, or of Serenity from Firefly appearing in the pilot miniseries for the revived Battlestar Galactica -- technically actionable if the copyright holder were to chose to pursue it, but they probably won't since it's more of a "cameo" and a wink to the other franchise than it is an actual attempt to profit off of their trademarks.