Quite a few folks have written to ask or tell me about David Letterman's battle over "intellectual property" when he left NBC. I should have mentioned that.
Basically, NBC made the same assertion and what Dave did was to abandon most of what they were claiming. For example, his music makers could no longer be called "The World's Most Dangerous Band" and Larry "Bud" Melman had to revert to using his real name, Calvert DeForest. But Letterman went ahead and used a few things — most notably his Top-Ten Lists — that he (and I suppose, his lawyers) felt were generic enough than NBC couldn't claim ownership. And NBC never made an issue of them. Whenever Conan O'Brien surfaces somewhere, he'll probably do the same thing — use a few bits and rename others.