We go through this every year. There’s always somebody that doesn’t understand trademarks, or the courts long list of ruling that require trademark holders to strongly enforce them (basically block and sue everybody they encounter breaking them) or lose them. Don’t ever advertise anything as a Super Bowl party, or a NCAA Tournament party, or any kind of trademark you don’t hold party, because if the holder finds out they HAVE to shut you down.
If I have to hear “The Big Game” one more time, I’m going to lose it.
Well, they don’t sue the newspapers for reporting on the game, do they?
Maybe, just to be safe, the newspapers should not use any trademarks. They could put a big headline saying “Team from Colorado Wins Important Football Game”, and write the whole article not mentioning any trademarked names.
No they don't. Instead of being schmucks, they could have sold them a license to use the trademark for that event for $1.
I agree with you.
I used to work at Caterpillar Tractor. They were and still are very very aggressive in pursuing their trademark. And so guess what? No one uses “Caterpillar” or “Cat” remotely with their products. Those are exclusive trademarks of Caterpillar.
I see a lot of these postings where the person writing the article is trying to drum up something to get a rise out of us.
The other day someone posted a child’s home made cupcakes being shut down because the board of health said they were in violation of their food preparation codes. The article written like the big bad govt came in and shut down this poor kid’s cupcake business. Hey, it’s the law. If someone were to eat the cupcake and get sick then what?
Take to the next level, O’Reilly who goes on his show two days ago ranting about how the republicans are making a mistake by opposing the minimum wage limit to $10. Forget the fact that just about anyone with any horsesense can see that the min wage law helps unions, and not the entry level worker. In fact, it reduces jobs by forcing companies to automate these entry level jobs.
In short, I wish people would stop posting articles that are stupid in the first place.
Of course for many years the NFL did not enforce the trademark, later changed their minds, yet still retain the rights despite knowingly allowing thousands of groups to use it.
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.”