Arsenal, The UK Football Club, Sues Arsenal Cider House, The Pittsburgh Bar, Because Of Course It Would
from the up-your-arsenal dept
Exactly how far can overly protective trademark owners go before the wider public wakes up to what a shitstorm trademark has become? It's a question I find myself asking often, given the type of stories we cover around here. It seems any progress made on that front is slow, however, and the ridiculous stories keep on rolling in. You may recall that the Premier League, the UK's famous soccer/football/whatever league, has already proven itself incapable of making any kind of sense while enforcing its intellectual property rights. Well, perhaps taking its cue from its parent league, the also-famous Arsenal soccer club is reaching across the pond to try to block a trademark application for a small bar in the suburbs of Pittsburgh.
When Arsenal Cider House filed for a trademark application, lawyers with the football club tried to stop them.
“I really don’t understand it completely. I know that they don’t have their name on alcohol that I know of, that I can find on the internet, but somehow they’ve justified opposing our trademark,” said Arsenal Cider House owner Bill Larkin.
Reviewing the myriad of iconography for Arsenal compared with what few images I found for Arsenal Cider House, any similarities between the branding appear to be minimal at most. They share the name, and Arsenal Cider House has a cannon in some of its branding, as does the soccer club. Other than that, everything else appears to be different: the colors, the logos, the fonts. Which means this appears to be all about the "Arsenal" name.
As Larkin notes, the soccer club doesn't appear to be involved in the liquor business, so it's not clear how the trademarks would either compete with one another or cause any customer confusion. For the latter, add to it that one entity is a massively well-known sporting team and the other is a local drinking spot and it's pretty clear there should be no confusion between the two. It's not like Arsenal Cider House was named after the team, either.
Larkin says he came up with the name because he was originally located across the street from Arsenal Park.
Yet, here is another small business owner forced to deal with a trademark opposition from a company an ocean away all the same.
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Filed Under: arsenal, trademark
Companies: arsenal, arsenal cider house
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...based on a noun commonly found in any dictionary and originally applied to something that has nothing to do with football.
I think that last part's worth stressing. These things are silly anyway, but they reach a whole new level when the name wasn't something they created in the first place.
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IP Lawyers in pursuit of OPM -- Other People's Money
And yes, one would think that bright, successful people running profitable businesses would be less gullible, but no; they have been told by their lawyers to worry, so worry they must. Worry that someone, somewhere might possibly be making some money that they themselves could have had, if only they had been more vigilant in protecting their "intellectual property". It makes you want to say "Hello? Don't you realize you're being played? The only people taking money that you could have kept in your own pocket is these worthless lawyers."
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Re: IP Lawyers in pursuit of OPM -- Other People's Money
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Football clubs sell advertising
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Re: Football clubs sell advertising
whoop-dee-fucking-doo, the purpose of trademark isn't to provide a bludgeon to enforce YOUR OWN idea of how some fictitious legal entity *MIGHT*, *MAYBE* AT SOME POINT IN THE FUTURE, decide it wants to sponsor a hard cider or whatever...
you are not (supposed to) camp out on a singular term, name, color, font, whatever, and have ANY and ALL MADE-UP RIGHTS to prevent anyone from daring to whisper that for for-fucking-ever in ANY other context...
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Re: Re: Football clubs sell advertising
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Re: Football clubs sell advertising
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Sue Arsenal for infringement
After all, Arsenal FC's brand is recreation on a large field, which is the very definition of a park. And while Arsenal FC was founded in 1886, the Pittsburgh Arsenal was set aside as an actual arsenal in 1814.
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Re: Sue Arsenal for infringement
Just sayin'...
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90% of Trademark law is bollocks
Strong protection should be reserved for Trademarks that truly are new--invented words that have meaning in the public mind solely through the efforts of the company using the word. But the Arsenal Football Club did not invent the word arsenal. They did not popularize the word arsenal. Closer to the truth to say that they are free-riding on a word popularized through great military effort and public expense.
I don't see any justification for giving them any rights at all to the word except as explicitly referring to a soccer team somewhere in England.
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That it only applys to the business you are in
eg arsenal is in the business of sport ,english soccer
they also sell sporting goods and merchandise with
the arsenal colours and logo .
Apple computer does not go after shops that sell
apples .or have signs apples for sale 3 for a dollar.
Epecially where the word is already in use and was not
invented by the trademark holder .
Soccer is not that popular in the usa ,no one is gonna to a usa pub and think its owned by an english
soccer team.
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Re:
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TPP Implications?
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McDonalds breakfast brand infringed by politician?
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Re: McDonalds breakfast brand infringed by politician?
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The similarities in logos is stark
This is one of arsenals older but still trademarked logos: https://www.vintagefootballshirts.com/uploads/teams/images/arsenal-196.png
Now do you get it?
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Re: The similarities in logos is stark
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Re: The similarities in logos is stark
So, yeah, I get it still being a cash grab or overreach by a large company trying to control everything.
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Arsenal is owned by an American
Also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stan_Kroenke
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This is #SlamStan always looking for more money
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#SlamStan land grab leads to suicide allegedly
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