Disney’s attempt to trademark a cultural holiday runs into social media wall

Disney Enterprises had hoped to secure name rights to “Dia de los Muertos,” a Mexican holiday honoring relatives who have died that has spread throughout much of Latin America.

Disney is making an animated film inspired by the holiday, and, following the same, most-times, successful path Disney follows, it filed to trademark the name so to follow up with licensed merchandise, skulls and skeletons being so popular nowadays.

Shortly after a petition was filed on Change.org protesting the trademark request, it went viral. Overwhelming numbers told Disney to back off and withdraw its trademark application, which it did, with this statement:

"As we have previously announced, Disney-Pixar is developing an animated feature inspired by the Mexican holiday Dia de los Muertos… Disney's trademark filing was intended to protect any potential title for our film and related activities. It has since been determined that the title of the film will change, and therefore we are withdrawing our trademark filing."