Hacker Cinema
Space Marines
1996 · Film · 95 min
Directed by John Weidner
Space pirates, led by diabolical Colonel Fraser, take over a cargo ship carrying anti-matter explosive and an important official. Space marines, led by Captain Gray, must stop their evil plans.
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1 comment on Hacker News
The problem is not prior art, but the descriptive or generic nature of the term.
Just because there's a software company selling music or even a music label with trademarks on 'Apple' doesn't mean I cannot call a song about apples 'Apple Song'. See the case cited in section b of [1] as to why 'space marine' might not be the best choice if you want to put a trademark on a book's title.
'Prior art' is helpful insofar as it establishes the nature of the term in question. The term 'space marine' is not as widely used as I initially believed (eg it's neither used in Starship Troopers nor Aliens, and might not be in Starcraft - did not verify with the game itself and online sources are ambiguous).
However, it can still be found in a lot of places:
Misfit by Heinlein, Grayson Space Marine Corps in David Weber's Honorverse, Doomguy and the Quake marines, the Star Blazers TV series, Death of the Daleks, the movie 'Space Marines' from 1997, Colonel Scott of the US Space Marines from Moonraker, to name the ones I could come up with.
[1] http://www.copylaw.com/new_articles/titles.html