NHL Says It's Infringing To Use The Keyword NHL In Your App About The NHL

from the descriptive-uses-anyone? dept

Wed, May 11th 2011 3:40am — Mike Masnick

After recently posting about the NHL's over aggressiveness in claiming that a car dealership saying, "Go Canucks Go!" in its window was infringing, we were contacted by Andrea Dulko, who let us know about her experience. She had created an iOS app called Red Light District, which provides news, highlights and analysis concerning NHL hockey. It's basically an aggregator of information about the NHL. However, Apple forwarded her a complaint, saying that by simply using NHL as a keyword, it was infringing on the NHL's trademark. To put it mildly, this is ridiculous. The use was descriptive and accurate, and there's no likelihood of confusion. No proverbial "moron in a hurry" is going to see a simple app with NHL news and assume it must be from the NHL itself. Either way, Dulko decided to pull the keyword, but she also more or less stopped updating the app. Congratulations, NHL, on taking the fun out of fans promoting you.

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: app, trademark
Companies: nhl

19 Comments

If you liked this post, you may also be interested in...

Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread

Anonymous Coward, 11 May 2011 @ 3:53am

So... Is Techdirt going to be sued too?

I mean, this article does have the tags "app" and "nhl".
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
caliburn, 11 May 2011 @ 4:03am

I think they need to go after someone wealthy who can fight back.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Jeff, 11 May 2011 @ 4:03am

So let's come up with some REALLY GOOD alternate names to call them.
1: The countrywide stick and puck league
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Anonymous Coward, 11 May 2011 @ 4:13am
  
  Re: So let's come up with some REALLY GOOD alternate names to call them.
  So now you are infringing on Countrywide's trademarks!
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
  - Jeff, 11 May 2011 @ 4:54am
    
    Re: Re: So let's come up with some REALLY GOOD alternate names to call them.
    Couldn't have .. I didn't capitalize :-)
    [ link to this | view in chronology ]
    - Anonymous Coward, 11 May 2011 @ 8:05am
      
      Re: Re: Re: So let's come up with some REALLY GOOD alternate names to call them.
      SmileyWorld would like to speak with you regarding your unlicensed use of our Trademark.
      [ link to this | view in chronology ]
      - Gwiz (profile), 11 May 2011 @ 8:13am
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: So let's come up with some REALLY GOOD alternate names to call them.
        The United States Patent and Trademark Office would like to speak to you regarding your unlicensed use of the word "Trademark".
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Chronno S. Trigger (profile), 11 May 2011 @ 5:22am
  
  Re: So let's come up with some REALLY GOOD alternate names to call them.
  "The Stick an Puck League That Shall Not be Named" or is that infringing on JK's trademark?
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
AJBarnes, 11 May 2011 @ 4:46am

Fans?
Maybe they just don't deserve them. I have quit watching almost all professional sports. I used to be able to go to a baseball game and have a hot dog and drink for about $10. Today, it costs almost $100. Basketball? They took all the class out of the game when they dumbed down the rules. Traveling, goal tending... all gone. It's just who can slam dunk with the most noise. And football? Same money grab as the others.

So I just switched to the minor leagues and now watch professional college sports.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous Coward, 11 May 2011 @ 4:47am

Simple, Pro-IP solution...
...let's just eliminate everything NHL (oops...sorry) from the Internet. Then roll in laughter when fans can't find scores, directions, tickets (!), licensed merchandise or anything else. After all, we can't tell what's an officially licensed referece to their silly initials so best to be safe and take that acronym off the web. Make an example of the narrow-minded NHL (dang, did it again) by wiping them off the face of the electronic earth. As always, the lesson is to be careful what you wish for.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- PRMan, 11 May 2011 @ 12:30pm
  
  Re: Simple, Pro-IP solution...
  And strangely, they already learned this lesson about 10 years ago. Jim Rome used to be what he called "the biggest pimp for the NHL" and talked about them way more than they deserved ratings-wise because he liked hockey.
  
  Gary Bettman tried to control what he talked about and he quit talking about them at all for about 7 years.
  
  You would think they would keep this in mind before suing people that are using the trademark as a reference only.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
josh, 11 May 2011 @ 5:14am

just call it the N word
Just avoid it by calling it the N word.

"Check out this N word app"

Issue resolved
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- halley (profile), 11 May 2011 @ 7:36am
  
  Re: just call it the N word
  The phrase "the N word" is about as irrelevant, inflammatory and base attention-grabbing as the phrase "Red Light District." Well played.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
DannyB (profile), 11 May 2011 @ 5:25am

Tirade Marks
Intellectual Property is like waking up from a bad dream to find out that you're signed up with AT&T.

Is that use a tirade mark infringement? No. I'm not attempting to cause confusion. In fact, I wanted you to know exactly which cell phone carrier I meant.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Chronno S. Trigger (profile), 11 May 2011 @ 8:57am
  
  Re: Tirade Marks
  "Intellectual Property is like waking up from a bad dream to find out that you're signed up with AT&T."
  
  Oh, that's happening to me. I currently have T-Mobile.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous Coward, 11 May 2011 @ 6:20am

The first rule of fight club is don't talk about fight club
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
dcee (profile), 11 May 2011 @ 7:28am

Well, the NHL probably went to a Crash Course On Infringement by the UFC.

Wow, I used NHL and UFC in the same sentence. Any lawyer reading this? I might need legal counsel.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
NullOp, 11 May 2011 @ 8:52am

Do you think....
Personally I think it would be of great value if we could kill all the free advertising that goes on. I don't know when it became popular to wear advertising but I find it very distasteful. IMHO, cover up all the logos on your clothes or, better yet, don't buy clothes with logos! And as for the NHL...they need to get over themselves!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Ben Strom (profile), 11 May 2011 @ 10:53pm

It's kind of sad considering how digital-friendly the NHL has been recently in terms of allowing game clips on youtube, posting all their highlights and allowing remixes, etc. etc.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]