Two trademark purposes for the phrase “Boston” had been filed this month below the Red Sox identify — an aggressive proposal that trademark regulation consultants laughed at and confused has an “extremely low” probability of getting authorised by the federal authorities.
The filings, which could be discovered on the United States Patent and Trademark Office web site, intention to trademark the town’s identify for all method of clothes and leisure companies, together with radio, podcasts, and tv.
New York copyright regulation legal professional Maryann E. Licciardi — of Cowan, Liebowitz & Latman — filed the purposes for Boston Red Sox Baseball Club Limited Partnership New England Sports Ventures, LLC, which has a Fenway Park tackle. When reached for touch upon Thursday, she deferred to Major League Baseball.
Sources inform the Herald that the Red Sox weren’t conscious of the endeavor, which was initiated by the league. MLB reportedly utilized on the workforce’s behalf, and had been additionally behind related purposes filed for the Houston Astros and Seattle Mariners the identical day, March 17.
MLB didn’t instantly reply to requests for touch upon Thursday besides to say that they had been wanting into the matter.
“They’re seeking the rights to the word ‘Boston’ itself, and the government should flat out reject this,” Boston University School of Law Professor Stacey Dogan instructed the Herald, as she chuckled at instances in regards to the trademark bid.
“The word ‘Boston’ has a zillion different meanings,” she added. “It doesn’t refer specifically to this team.”
The league owns all workforce “names, nicknames, logos, nicknames, logos, uniform designs, color combinations, and slogans designating the Major League Baseball clubs and entities, and their respective mascots, events and exhibitions,” declares the authorized discover on MLB.com.
Yet on the trademark purposes, “Boston” isn’t even styled within the workforce’s basic font.
New England Law professor Peter Karol stated the Sox trademark purposes are too broad and aggressive.
“These are absurd filings and are an overreach,” he stated. “They have a very low chance of being successful.”
“Trademark law doesn’t generally allow what they’re trying to do,” Karol added. “They’re reluctant to give a group the right to a place.”
Karol advised that this could possibly be an try by the league to close down distributors promoting merchandise and attire exterior, and famous that the appliance for leisure companies mentions fantasy sports activities.
“I think that could be part of what’s going on, with the huge rise of fantasy sports and betting,” Karol stated. “They might want to be protective of the word in digitized formats, and maybe the metaverse, too.”
Sports betting turned authorized in Massachusetts earlier this month, and is already authorized in Washington state, however not Texas. The Red Sox have already got partnerships with BetMGM and DraftKings.
Alexandra Jane Roberts, a professor at Northeastern University School of Law, emphasised that the trademark’s possibilities of success are “extremely low.”
“There are words and phrases that just can’t be trademarked because they’re used by so many different sources, it can’t be associated with a single source,” including, “There are catch phrases and slogans that are just going to be really hard or impossible to establish trademark rights.”
Source: www.bostonherald.com”