Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-3502824-20180531202043/@comment-29630844-20180531231148

Kenji135 wrote: I'm surprised 艦娘 can be trademarked.

It's not exactly a unique term now, is it; it's practically a general description. Anthropomorphic ship is shipgirl and anthropomorphic tank is tankgirl.

Now we will start having companies coming up with weird katakana for their ships and tanks and planes (◔_◔) But of course it can. Look at Daimler-Benz. These are just surnames of the founders. Kadokawa is also named after its founder. Contrary to these, "Kanmusu" is a made up term, an abbreviation of "Kantai no Musume" (Fleet's Daughter/Fleet Girl). It's by all means trademarkable, same as Porsche could trademark the "911" (later hijacked by Talibans).