Broken vs. Woken
By Scott Keith on 6th December 2017
So if I'm understanding this right, Matt will officially own the "Broken" universe in January, assuming no one contests his attempt to copyright it.
But WWE has created the "Woken" persona because they want a gimmick that's essentially the sake as the Broken one, but that the WWE can own themselves.
When Matt eventually leaves the WWE and tries to use the Broken gimmick again, could WWE stop him from using it because it's too similar to the Woken gimmick that they own? Is Matt being had here?
I don't think so, because while you make legal distinctions about whether the gimmick was owned by TNA or just created there, there's no such distinction here. Matt clearly was using the gimmick elsewhere before bringing it to WWE, so it's not their intellectual property. They appear to be more concerned with merchandising rights, so they can do Woken t-shirts and such. But I'm no legal talking guy, I could be wrong.