Posted on 01/31/2014 9:11:37 AM PST by Doogle
Super Bowl XLVIII's hometown has a rude guest.
The sports world is converging on East Rutherford (pop. 8,978) for Sunday's game between the Denver Broncos and the Seattle Seahawks, and all the town wanted to do was have a little block party for locals not rich or lucky enough to have tickets.
The NFL can't stop the party, but they did bar East Rutherford from using the phrase "Super Bowl" in any description of the humble event, set to take place Sunday afternoon in the shadow of the town's most famous building, MetLife Stadium.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
No, the Olympics won.
What it generally boils down to in trademark enforcement is specific knowledge. If you specifically find out somebody is violating your trademark you have to go after them, if you don’t know about the specific you can’t be expected to enforce. Which is the problem of the internet age, before the internet every other town, church and club in the country could hold a Super Bowl party and the league could reasonably be expected to not hear about any of them because NYC based operations didn’t tend to hear much about the goings on in Sheboygan Wisconsin. Now in the internet age there’s no such thing as local news or events, if one guy in the league office has a story about some party hit his news feed there’s now multiple records that the league “knew” about the party. They no longer have the ability to say “we didn’t know”, which gives them the obligation to enforce.
Nonprofit organizations trademark stuff all the time, otherwise any idiot could put up a “March of Dimes” bucket on their counter and collect money and keep it and the real March of Dimes would have no recourse. Do you want your favorite charity to not be able to protect their logo from scammers? Then you’re OK with nonprofits using trademark protection.
If they stated “Town party to celebrate the Super Bowl(TM)” it should be fine. And then in fine print “Super Bowl is a trademark of the National Football League.”
With his salary no wonder Goodell’s wife quit Fox News...
(Jane Skinner is Mrs Goodell)
I guess you’re not old enough to remember all the national ad campaigns with Super Bowl promos for which the NFL did nothing to stop. When they started charging for official NFL sponsorship the companies ponying up started to complain. So as usual the NFL gets to have it both ways. When it’s to their benefit they do nothing. When it’s in their benefit to act, they “vigorously defend their trademark.” Just please don’t give us the pious baloney about trademark laws.
Why don’t they call it “The Souper Bowl” and have everyone bring a can of soup.
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They were also influenced by other legal cases that if you allowed your trademark to fall into generic use (Kleenex, Jell-O, Band-Aid, etc.) you stood the risk of losing it.
Exactly how long was that supposed to take ? Two or three centuries? I mean it wasn’t like they let it slide a season or two.
My company's website was the single word, "controls" and the "rus" was attached to the end of the word making it "controlsrus."
After a bit of back and forth on how we felt were not using the "R-Us" in the manner that had been trademarked, he persisted in further informing me of an impending lawsuit against my company if I did not cease and desist immediately!
I finally got him to quit harassing me when I told him to get back to me when he got the Tyrannasau-R-Us Rex to change it's name, along with all the other dinosaurs that were infringing upon his client's trademark.
Never heard another word from the creep.
They'd be liable the same as anyone else?
And further, trademark infringement, is apples to oranges to an 11 year old making and selling cupcakes. If the National Felon League wants to defend their trademark and property rights, so what. Me personally, I think it's petty to hype the game and then do something like this; especially when these people (while indirectly benefiting from increase revenue to the town etc) have to deal with traffic and party-peoples throwing up in their street. But the trademark is the property of the NFL.
The big bad government did come in and shut down an 11 year old's small time cup cake business. An 11 year old that donated much of her profits, and cupcakes to cancer charities, and the rest she was saving to buy a car. I guess she should've been taught to not work or be responsible and expect your benevolent government to provide everything for her....besides, those cancer patients have 0care now - they don't need her charity.
But, you're absolutely right. The law *is* the law. We need government to tell us every little thing about what is safe and what is not. We should screw everyone over and let 0care stand without further fight because it's the law.
Any old gun-grab legislation that gets passed should be allowed to stand without a fight because it's the law. And no one should ever say anything to the contrary, because the law is the law. And of course any articles against such government overreach benevolence would be "stupid." I mean what if someone had a fully semi-automatic machine pistol with a clip magazine thingy of 8 high powered bullets......and they shot someone? I mean aren't high powered bullets just as dangerous as e coli or botulism?
You are the exact reason gas pumps have decals warning people gasoline is harmful if ingested. I mean, what if someone didn't know that and they drank the gas and got sick? Oh noes..........
But by printing stories about the Super Bowl, they expect to sell newspapers, don’t they? The revenue doesn’t go to the NFL, it goes the paper.
Believe me, it’s only a matter of time.
Back in those days we always held our noses going through Secaucus on our way to Newark Airport. It had a bad stench way back when.
One more dollar for Jerry Jones pocket.
Jerry likes dollars more than winning.
They’re covering an event. It’s not a “matter of time” this stuff has been settled for a long time. Aggressive protection of trademark started being mandatory in the 80s, before Bill Watterson lost control of Calvin and Hobbes (one of the reasons he did lose control). And the press having access to the trademarked names of events they were covering was settled in the 19th century. The only part of this that’s new is who runs into the problem, somebody does it every year.
Superb Owl 48
Only if the league agreed they could use their trademarked phrase. It’s not about acknowledging the trademark, it’s about getting permission from the holder.
When was this? I’m 44 and don’t remember any time people were allowed to throw around Super Bowl without permission. I’ve watched the game long enough that “express written permission of commissioner Rozelle and the NFL” is one word in my brain. So you’ll need to show such a thing actually happened. Meanwhile vigorous defense has caused a number of trademarks do go away, it’s how Bill Watterson lost control of Calvin and Hobbes, here’s another case ( http://www.forbes.com/sites/oliverherzfeld/2013/02/28/failure-to-enforce-trademarks-if-you-snooze-do-you-lose/ ). That is the reality of the situation and your declaring it “pious baloney” doesn’t change those facts but does show your lack of same.
Which in part explains why radio ads have no choice but to use "The BIg Game", as they don't want to waste precious ad seconds on the disclaimer.
Why don’t they just rename it “Super Bowel” party? It’s not like a lot of attendees would notice.
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