‘The Perfect Season’ Trademark: IU Would Have To License The Phrase From The Patriots
from the perfectly-ridiculous dept
It’s been nearly a decade since Mike wrote about the strange trademark approval the New England Patriots received on the term “Perfect Season.” The story rang as odd for several reasons, not the least of which being that the team applied for the mark in 2008 just before that year’s Super Bowl and at a time in which the Patriots had completed an 18-0 record including the regular season and two playoff games. The Patriots then famously fell on their collective face against the Giants, making the season very much not perfect. But the team went ahead and got the mark anyway. Add to that my take that this kind of phrase for the categories of sports apparel and the like is not nearly unique enough to serve as a valid mark to begin with and we have a situation practically begging to get absurd.
And the absurdity may have arrived. For you non-sports fans in the audience, the Indiana University Hoosiers just won the College Football National Championship without losing a single game during the season. IU, in stark contrast to the Patriots, did in fact have a perfect season. But if they, or anyone else, would like to celebrate that fact, they would need to license the use of the term from the Patriots to do so.
Not only did The Kraft Group continue, they licensed the mark to the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association for use in a DVD in order to satisfy the “use in commerce” stipulation by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office and, in 2016, the team was granted rights to the trademarks.
Unlike Pat Riley, who filed to trademark “Three Peat” when he was the coach of the Lakers and then cashed in when the Chicago Bulls and New York Yankees won three straight titles, The Kraft Group’s trademark hasn’t had many opportunities to gain royalties from the mark.
But Kraft can demonstrate it has used the term in commerce via its previous licensing agreements. That puts IU and/or apparel companies in the position to go one of three routes. They can license the term for apparel from Kraft, thereby perpetuating this entire silly enterprise, they can not license the phrase and potentially fight a court battle to invalidate the trademark after they make the products and are sued or threatened by Kraft, or they can just not use the phrase at all.
The latter appears to be the most likely route.
Items in Indiana’s team store use the word “Perfection.” Homefield Apparel, whose original school is Indiana, uses “Perfect” without “Season” on its shirts.
Even that is absurd. Again, the end result, thanks to a USPTO all too happy to approve trademarks that it probably shouldn’t, is that a team that achieved a perfect season cannot freely use the phrase that correctly describes its own accomplishment because it would have to license it from a team that didn’t.
Filed Under: perfect season, trademark, trademark bullying
Companies: indiana university, kraft group, new england patriots
Comments on “‘The Perfect Season’ Trademark: IU Would Have To License The Phrase From The Patriots”
It should be considered abandonment of the mark any year that the Patriots get a loss or else holding the mark is false advertising.
They should just give it to IU on the condition that IU give it to the next sports franchise that has such a season, and so forth.
Just use the term flawless season, it’s got the same ring and understanding for fuck sakes.
At least Threepeat wasn’t a real word.
As with other trademark issues, this really seems like a problem with a failure of imagination. Is it really absolutely necessary to use one specific phrase for anything?
The phrase “Season of Perfection” might be considered too close to the TM and therefore as infringing, but it’s still a possibility that some lawyers might want to defend. How about some others?
“Winning Season”
“Oops, All Wins!”
“‘Tis the Season to be Winning!”
“‘Tis the Season to be Perfect!” (probably far enough from the TM, but lawyers might still want to litigate)
“Steamroller Season!”
“Steamroller Time!”
“People are asking lots of questions about my t-shirt saying ‘We Won Every Game This Season!’ that are already answered by my t-shirt.” (OK, probably too long)
Re:
You’re entirely missing the point about bad trademarks.
There needs to be rules about gaming trademark requirements. And i will add selling or licensing marks which do not actually represent the original brand, which actually does cause consumer confusion intentionally, or is somehow not confusing because money changed hands. Utterly ridiculous.