Washington, Thursday, 13 November 2025.
Legal reporting in 2025 shows a sharp rise in intellectual-property enforcement that is increasingly material to theme-park planning and operations. Trademark and copyright owners are policing character use and live entertainment more aggressively, while patent challenges now target ride technologies and guest-experience systems — an intrusion operators did not face at this scale before. The most striking development: patent and copyright claims are adding measurable friction to licensing deals, raising due-diligence and contingency costs and forcing changes to procurement specs, indemnity clauses, insurance placements and master-planning timelines. For licensing teams and procurement leads, practical responses include tightening IP warranties, segmenting rights for live shows and merchandise, stress-testing vendor IP representations, and allocating dispute contingency budgets. This brief flags which commercial levers to prioritise and why immediate reassessment of IP portfolios and contract templates should be part of any attraction development or major refresh through 2025, and operational risk modelling now urgently.