I like. Other reasons to throw it out of court: Unless TAMI's Potter actually trademarked his name before 1997, there's no trademark to infringe on. And there's obviously enough difference between his history and the character's that he can't argue that it's an unauthorized biography, and thus it's not an attempt to cash in on his reputation.
Plus in general fictional characters usually get a pass on name overlap things like this, because for most works outside of SF/Fantasy it's pretty much impossible to come up with a name someone somewhere hasn't used already in the real world. In television and advertising the usual practice is to find someone with the same name as the character and offer him a token payment for its use -- like $1 -- as a defense against exactly this kind of lawsuit. ("Your Honor, the character in question cannot be based on the plaintiff, because we paid Person X for the rights to his name two years ago. We respectfully submit the signed and dated contract to the court as Exhibit A.") Case in point: Mr. Whipple of the old Charmin commercials was named for George Whipple, president of the advertising agency which created the commercials, for which he received IIRC exactly $1.
Of course that doesn't stop people from launching these kinds of suits, but it sure makes it hard for them to get past the first hearing on the merit of their case.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
Plus in general fictional characters usually get a pass on name overlap things like this, because for most works outside of SF/Fantasy it's pretty much impossible to come up with a name someone somewhere hasn't used already in the real world. In television and advertising the usual practice is to find someone with the same name as the character and offer him a token payment for its use -- like $1 -- as a defense against exactly this kind of lawsuit. ("Your Honor, the character in question cannot be based on the plaintiff, because we paid Person X for the rights to his name two years ago. We respectfully submit the signed and dated contract to the court as Exhibit A.") Case in point: Mr. Whipple of the old Charmin commercials was named for George Whipple, president of the advertising agency which created the commercials, for which he received IIRC exactly $1.
Of course that doesn't stop people from launching these kinds of suits, but it sure makes it hard for them to get past the first hearing on the merit of their case.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.