Chicago Cubs: With Success Comes Trademark Lawsuit Against Street Vendors
from the cubby-blues dept
As a lifelong Cubs fan with a resume that includes going to my first game at Wrigley when I was four months old and living in Wrigleyville for several years, I can at the very least claim some expertise on the culture around the team and the stadium. For those that have not been lucky enough to visit baseball's Mecca, the walk about up to the park consists of bar-laden streets on either Addison or Clark, with the sidewalks spilling over with fans, bar-patrons, and street vendors. Those street vendors offer innumerable wares, including t-shirts, memorabillia, and food. It's part of the experience.
An experience suddenly under fire by the team and Major League Baseball, which have jointly filed a federal lawsuit against some forty street vendors for trademark and counterfeit violations.
The Cubs and Major League Baseball filed a lawsuit in federal court Thursday against a vendors hawking allegedly counterfeit and trademark-infringing merchandise.
"Defendants are a group of vendors who are deliberately free riding on the success of the Cubs and trading — without a license or permission — on the substantial goodwill associated with the Cubs' trademarks and trade dress," the team and the league claimed in the lawsuit, alleging the vendors "flooded Wrigleyville and the Internet with all manner of unlicensed products."
They're not wrong, of course. These vendors are everywhere. As I said, it's part of the experience. And it got to be that way because it's gone on forever. That the team is suddenly taking this action on the eve of a playoff run is within its rights, certainly, but doesn't otherwise make a great deal of sense. Were this the problem the filing appears to claim it is, it should have been a problem during last year's playoff run, or in 2007 and 2008 when the team also made postseason appearances.
While much is made in the Tribune post about how the internet has exacerbated this problem, the vendors targeted here sell solely on the street around the ballpark. Something they have surely done for years now. The team must surely have considered the question of whether forty street vendors posed a true threat to its trademark rights and the insane merchandise revenue it collects from its own sales, and whether or not that threat was of greater importance than an ambiance and culture that has always been central to the team's commercial success.
The Cubs clearly think the threat is real, but it's tough to see how that makes sense. Other avenues besides a federal lawsuit could have been pursued in order to protect the team's trademark rights, but the Cubs didn't go that route. Instead, street vendors will be brought into court, even as the team makes its run. The friendly confines feel a little less friendly all of a sudden.
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Filed Under: baseball, competition, counterfeit goods, trademark, vendors
Companies: chicago cubs
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If people selling knock-offs are damaging your income, maybe its because people are just seeing a better deal. A better deal you can't make go away. You can sue a bunch of them, drag them to court, waste more money than their absence would likely earn you on court cases, but they'll keep coming up. Not because of supply (how easy and cheap it is to make) but because of demand (people who can't afford your ridiculously marked up memorabilia, but still want a souvenir to remember an enjoyable day).
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Now why don't you f*** up your pizza and completely ruin the city?
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Re:
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I have trouble seeing the problem here
I am normally in agreement with many of the IP articles here, but you are way off the mark (pardon the pun) on this one.
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Re: I have trouble seeing the problem here
This is 40 or so street vendors that sell just outside your stadium. First, if you were to get an injunction, the experience of not being able to buy a Cubs t-short at these vendor stands would suck for your fans (and they really should be considered here).
If this is really just about licensing, putting together a simple and reasonable licensing package for each of the vendors and presenting it to them reasonably might have been a much better first step. That seems to have been skipped (based on the three articles I have read). They could probably make a bit of money, keep their marks protected, and possibly get a bit more information about the market they are apparently trying to serve.
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Re: I have trouble seeing the problem here
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Wait ... what?
"without a license or permission "
omg! - what are we to do
"substantial goodwill associated with the Cubs"
so much so that here is a subpoena
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Why
Their reasoning is in the article...
" It's unclear how much a postseason run drives merchandise sales, but the Cubs have marketable players, with Kris Bryant, Anthony Rizzo and Jake Arrieta ranking second, fourth and seventh on MLB's list of top-selling player jerseys through the first seven months of this year, according to MLB.com.
"Now there's more money to be made by the Cubs and lost by the Cubs to counterfeiters, and more counterfeiters will be motivated by the increased interest, so they decided it's a good time to take that step," Masters said."
This is a great window into how Trademark law has become almost solely beneficial to the Mega-Corps. Too bad the Cubs couldn't use a different option than the nuclear one.
Still a Cubs fan.
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Bullying Tactics
However yes, the few who do decide to fight it (if any) stand a chance of punching the Cubs in the mouth, metaphorically speaking, with the claims they have been doing this forever on the steps of the stadium and its only now that the Cubs have decided to try and stop them, possibly resulting in the loss of the Cubs trademark for failing to police it properly.
If it gets to court, it could be really interesting... 5 or 6 years down the road, long past the point of the Cubs becoming a garbage team again. :D
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Protecting one's property is not evil
---------------------------
Andrei Mincov
Founder and CEO of Trademark Factory®,
the only firm in the world where licensed lawyers and trademark agents help entrepreneurs and businesses from around the world trademark their brands with a free comprehensive trademark search, for a single all-inclusive flat fee, with a 100% money-back guarantee.
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