Manchester United Becomes Manchester UFC In 'Football Manager 22' Over Dumb Trademark Spat
from the mansplaining dept
It won't be a massive surprise that Manchester United, the famed Premier League football club, has made it onto our pages before. As the "Yankees of European soccer", it would be shocking if the club hadn't at some point taken aggressive action in the technology and IP space. Still, there isn't a great deal of posts in there, so you would be forgiven if you thought of Man-U as generally not bad on this sort of thing.
But, no, the club is perfectly capable of being protectionist, and even occasionally taking outrageous positions. For instance, we can start with the fact that Sega's Football Manager 22 will no longer include the name of the club in the game, but will shift it to something barely different after a lawsuit was filed because of... reasons.
Manchester United will be renamed Manchester UFC from Football Manager 22 onwards after the resolution of a trademark dispute. The Premier League club sued Football Manager publisher Sega in May last year, 16 years after the release of Sports Interactive's first Football Manager game, and 28 years after the launch of the first Championship Manager game.
In the actual lawsuit, Sega pushed back and stated that including the club in the context of a football/soccer game was a legitimate use, indicating it as basically simply describing reality. Sega also noted that Man-U had appeared under its name in the Football Manager series for literally 30 years without any complaint from the club whatsoever. Why this suddenly became an issue comes down to the club's desire to sell exclusive licenses for use to Sega's competitors, of course, but soccer games have existed forever. Where has Man-U been this entire time?
Further pushback came from Sega, indicating that the game designers went out of their way not to use Man-U's logos or crests, as that really would be a trademark violation. Somewhat amazingly, Man-U responded saying that was trademark infringement, too.
United also claimed Football Manager infringed its trademark of the Manchester United logo by not using the official Manchester United crest in the game. This "deprives the registered proprietor of its right to have the club crest licensed", Manchester United's lawyers said.
"Consumers expect to see the club crest next to the name Manchester United... and this failure to do so amounts to wrongful use," United argued, although the club's lawyer accepted this argument was "somewhat novel, and certainly in the context of video games, but it is certainly arguable".
Yes, it's novel, because I've never heard a trademark claimant suggest that not using trademarked iconography was infringement solely because it didn't result in a licensing deal to use the actual trademarked iconography. That's... not how this works. It would also be interesting to see how this claim would run up against any free speech rights Sega could point to in the UK. While obviously different from the laws in America, I'll just note that the 1st Amendment here would make this argument a complete non-starter. A 2nd party can't claim the right to force the 1st party to put something specifically in their game.
But, alas, Sega changed the name to something barely different to get out of this whole mess, noting the entire time that it admitted no guilt.
This means that, from this year's game onwards, Manchester United will be named 'Manchester UFC' or 'Man UFC'.
"These name changes have been made purely to settle the dispute on a no admissions basis," Sports Interactive added. "SEGA and Sports Interactive maintain that they do not need a licence to use the Manchester United name but have made the change as a gesture of goodwill so that both parties can move on."
And so everyone playing the game will know precisely what the game is referring to with its "Manchester UFC" name, but the club won't actually get the exposure benefit of having its normal branding in there.
Talk about an own-goal.
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Filed Under: football manager 22, machester ufc, trademark
Companies: machester united, premier league, sega
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Suggestion
You could just call the sport "Association Football", which is a neutral term. The "Soc-" in "Soccer" comes from the "soc" in "asSOCiation football", after all.
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Man United is one of the most popular teams in the UK and also has fans all over the world its at a point where it expects to get paid for any game its featured in. The uk does not have the free speech laws the us has.
Man u sells t shirts and merch all over the world
Sega is probably afraid it, ll get caught up in a prolonged legal action so it wants no delays so it just changes the name in the game
I think game devs should be allowed to use city names and team names in any game
I understand man u have trademarks on the team logo design and the color design of team uniforms
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Next on "What If?..."
... What if Manchester United continued pushing, and multiple publishers of soccer simulators simply took them out as if they never existed?
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In other news
"United also claimed Football Manager infringed its trademark of the Manchester United logo by not using the official Manchester United crest in the game. This "deprives the registered proprietor of its right to have the club crest licensed", Manchester United's lawyers said."
Manchester United demands that Google pay to send it traffic. Claims Club website should be straining under load of inquiries.
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Trademark laws are for avoiding confusion
I cannot really imagine that players of the game, upon seeing "Manchester UFC", imagine this to be a hypothetical different football club located in Manchester.
Nor do I think that the average player will now go "oh, Sega is owned by Liverpool since their logo can be seen in the game".
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Own goal
This is all comming off the back of the club (and others) royally pissing off football fans nationwide in trying to get the idiotic european super league started because....money. PR for Manchester United has taken quite the hit in the past year and it is 100% their own fault.
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I think SEGA messed up here, they should have changed the name to Manchester Unhinged.
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They could have had some fun with this
Not-Manchester United
Near-Bolton United
Manchester Athletic
Manchester Forrest
Big-Northwest Town (not Liverpool) United
And my favourite
Manchester United Front
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Re: They could have had some fun with this
Personchester red shirts
Team that plays home games at M16 0RA. (Thus avoiding any problems with the stadium name being copyrighted too)
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Football Manager 22
Use our crest without licensing, we'll sue you for trademark infringement. Don't use our crest and don't license it, we'll also sue you for trademark infringement.
Is Football Manager 22 just a modernised novel by Joseph Heller?
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Re: Suggestion
You could just call the sport "Association Football"
Yeah. I think there is a lot less focus on the "ociation Football" part going on here.
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I suppose...
A trademark dispute from the Ultimate Fighting Championship is on the way next?
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Manchester united have been in crippling debt since their leveraged buyout by American billionaires, they're not able to buy success as easily as they once were as other teams have narrowed the financial gap, fans and governments killed their planned superleague and covid slashed their income in general, so they're on the lookout for every penny of free money they think they can get.
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Re: Football Manager 22
You know, it seems rather appropriate that this story about Football Manager '22 involves a Catch-22
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Re: They could have had some fun with this
Do you mean Manchester city FC.
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Everyone downloads the proper name, kits and crests for free anyway. Dumb move from Man U
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Maybe Sega should completely remove Manchester United from the game and replace them with the more mature and talented Manchester Iowa Youth Soccer League.
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Re:
Or license the trademarks and crests of F.C. United of Manchester, a club formed by fans after the Glazer takeover, and pop them in the premier league instead. They'd help a non league team run by fans and give them the finger at the same time.
It wouldn't be the first time Sports Interactive did something like that, they've beem AFC Wimbledon's sponsors since they formed from the ashes of Wimbledon having their league position sold and moved into another city.
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Re: They could have had some fun with this
Near-Bolton United is gold.
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Re: They could have had some fun with this
Manchester Litigious; and for a team logo a judges powered wig.
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Morons
The Glazer Family are morons. It's kind of amazing that there is still a team there for them to rob with the way they have bungled everything.
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Re:
SEGA missed out by not stating they were first going with Manchester Football United.
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You shouldn't even be able to license a trademark use except when contracting or licensing another company to make a product in your line of business for which the trademark is registered and duly used. It shouldn't be another "piece of IP" from which to profit. That absolutely has zero functionality related to the purpose of trademark.
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Re:
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Re: I suppose...
And all because, "They weren't showing enough respect to Mainus".
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Re:
Oh, ohhhhhhh. It's owned by USAnians? Explanation complete.
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...so how long until they get a C&D from UFC and have to change it again?
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Re: Next on "What If?..."
What if they existed, but their performance was a reflex of their shitty legal behavior?
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