film and the animated series retain the Godzilla copyright and trademark. Toho had renewed the trademark on April 4, 2017 and is set to expire on April 20, 2027. Development During the production of the 1998 film, special effects artist Patrick Tatopoulos was contacted by director Roland Emmerich and asked to create a new design for the Godzilla character. According to Tatopoulos, the only specific instructions Emmerich gave him was that it should be able to run incredibly fast. Emmerich intended to depict the character as an animal rather than a monster. Godzilla was originally conceived by special effects director Eiji Tsubaraya, special effects designers Akira Wantanabe and Teizo Toshimitsu and producer Tomoyuki Tanaka as a robust, erect-standing, plantigrade reptilian sea monster, played by an actor in a rubber-latex full-body suit. Based on the instructions Emmerich gave him, Tatopoulos reimagined it as a lean, digitigrade bipedal iguana that stood with its back and tail parallel to the ground, rendered via computer animation. The monster's distinctive facial features include a prominent lantern jaw, inspired by the fictional tiger Shere Khan from Disney's animated adaptation of The Jungle Book. TriStar's Godzilla color scheme was designed to reflect and blend in with the urban environment. At one point, it was planned to use motion capture to create the movements of the computer-generated monster, but it ended up looking too much like a man in a suit. The Baby Godzilla scenes utilized a combination of CGI and purpose built costumes donned by actors. Kurt Carley portrayed the suitmation sequences for the adult Godzilla in the 1998 film while Frank Welker provided the sound effects for both the adult Godzilla as well as the Baby Godzillas. Upon pending approval for the design, at the time, Shōgo Tomiyama commented on the new look, saying "It was so different we realized we couldn't make small adjustments. That left the major question of whether to approve it or not." Though TriStar's Godzilla was referred to by the film's characters as a "he", Patrick Tatopoulos stated on a DVD audio commentary that the effects crew sculpted female genitalia into the CG model of the creature. In the 1998 film and animated series, TriStar's Godzilla is portrayed as a territorial, piscivorous, tall mutated lizard. Atypical of Toho's giant monster characters, TriStar's Godzilla is not immune to conventional weaponry, and instead relies on its cunning and athleticism to outflank its enemies.