While George Lucas technically coined the word “droid” in 1977's Star Wars, it is merely a bastardized form of “android”, which can be traced back nearly 300 years.
As a result of this, Verizon pays Lucasfilm Ltd. an undisclosed sum for the rights to use this word as a brand name. The word “droid” is just an aphesis form of “android”, a word that's been around since at least the 1700s.
YouTube's copyright system isn't broken. The world's is.
Who is the most famous droid?
Any list of the best droids in the Star Wars Universe has to begin and end with R2-D2. From proving itself in The Phantom Menace as one of the most capable of its kind to help Luke Skywalker take down the Death Star in A New Hope, R2 has seen and done it all.
By claiming he's never owned a droid, he applies the same tactic as he did with his embellishment about Anakin. He hasn't owned a droid because R2-D2 is his friend. No one can "own" him, and to claim to have done so disrespects the countless ways the little astromech has saved the galaxy.
While AOSP is free, the "Android" name and logo are trademarks of Google, which imposes standards to restrict the use of Android branding by "uncertified" devices outside their ecosystem.
To take its IP protection even further, Lucasfilm has even trademarked fun Star Wars-related phrases, such as “May the 4th be With You.” Additionally, a trademark application for Han Solo's famous line “I got a bad feeling about this” is currently pending with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).
The sinister Darth Vader is registered as a three-dimensional Union trademark (EM 005896601), as is the design of the Imperial "strom trooper" (EM005896311). The villain's name is also protected under the word mark "Lord Darth Vader" (DE 990370); his antagonist Obi-Wan Kenobi is registered as a word mark DE 39609975.
While difficult, some organics such as Anakin Skywalker, Hera Syndulla, Kazuda Xiono, Cal Kestis, and Rey were able to understand it. After decades of missions with R2-D2, Luke Skywalker was reasonably fluent in droidspeak.
When we first met Mando on the ice planet Pagodon, he paid extra for a human landspeeder pilot because he refused to ride with a droid at the controls. It was later revealed in season 1 that Din's disdain for droids came from the fact that his parents were killed by Separatist battle droids during the Clone Wars.
The Mandalorian has a distrust for all droids that stems from the fact that battle droids attacked his home planet and killed his parents during the Clone Wars when he was a child.
Clipping of android (“robot designed to look and act like a human being”), coined by the American science fiction author Mari Wolf (born 1927) in the story “Robots of the World! Arise!” (1952), and popularized by the film Star Wars (later retitled Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope, 1977): see the quotations.
Obi-Wan greets R2-D2 and later recalls “not owning a droid.” Obi-Wan purposely withheld information from Luke in order to keep Luke from straying away. This could offer an explanation as to why he appears to not know who R2-D2 is. Further in Empire Strikes Back, neither Yoda nor Darth Vader recognizes either droid.
However, Leia's strong-mindedness during Vader's probe denied him the opportunity to discover she was his daughter. That serves to justify Vader's lack of awareness of his connection to Leia, although, perhaps, not as satisfyingly as if Lucas had planned for the relationship from the beginning.
