Liverpool FC Denied 'Liverpool' Trademark Due To Its Geographic Significance

from the liver-worst dept

Over the past couple of months, we have been discussing Liverpool FC, of the Premier League, attempting to get a trademark for "Liverpool" in a few soccer-related market designations. Despite the narrow scope of the application, the whole thing was still silly, given that "Liverpool" is purely geographic in nature, not to mention that there are several other independent Liverpool-area soccer clubs that would suddenly be infringing on Liverpool FC's trademark if granted. Interestingly, there was also a rather severe backlash from the public, including from Liverpool fans themselves, who organized a protest against the club.

And now it turns out that all of that pain was for naught, as Liverpool FC has had its trademark application denied by the IPO.

Liverpool FC’s attempt to trademark the word “Liverpool” has been rejected by the government’s Intellectual Property Office due to the “geographical significance” of the city.

In a statement, Liverpool FC said: “The club accepts the decision that has been taken by the Intellectual Property Office, due primarily to what the official judgement cites as ‘the geographical significance’ of Liverpool as a city in comparison to place names that have been trademarked by other football clubs in the UK. We will, however, continue to aggressively pursue those large-scale operations which seek to illegally exploit our intellectual property and would urge the relevant authorities to take decisive action against such criminal activity wherever it exists.”

It's a sane ruling and the statement from Liverpool FC outlines exactly why its attempt to trademark its own city's name to go after large-scale merch sellers that are infringing the club's intellectual property was so wholly unnecessary. After all, here is the club stating that it's going to go ahead and do that enforcement anyway. So what was the point?

You get the sense from the public comments from the team's CEO that he, at least, understands what a total mess this all was.

Peter Moore, the club’s chief executive officer, said: “It should be stressed that our application was put forward in good faith and with the sole aim of protecting and furthering the best interests of the club and its supporters. Nevertheless, we accept the decision and the spirit in which it has been made.

“I would also like to take the opportunity to reiterate our thanks to all those who engaged with us throughout this process, most notably independent traders and local football clubs.”

Uh huh. What actually happened is that those traders, clubs, and the public rallied against what was an intrusive move to lock up the name of a famous city. Still, Moore does have to be diplomatic, I suppose, especially given what a PR nightmare this has become.

Let Liverpool FC serve as a warning, therefore, to any others that might want to apply for trademarks like this in the future.

Filed Under: liverpool, trademark
Companies: liverpool fc

Liverpool FC Also Apparently Attempted To Trademark Widely Used Chant By Football Fans

from the nacho-cheer dept

We were just discussing Liverpool FC, a football club in the UK's famous Premier League, receiving a ton of backlash from the public and other football clubs over its rather audacious attempt to trademark "Liverpool". Now, Liverpool FC claimed that its trademark application was extremely targeted, claiming that it was geared specifically towards the football marketplace. Unfortunately, in the current protectionist trademark era, that doesn't mean much. First, we see trademark holders threaten and sue those across marketplace borders all the time. Second, there are other football clubs in Liverpool, meaning that the trademark application represented a direct threat to their brands.

It turns out this callous attitude towards other football clubs isn't a one-off for Liverpool FC. Recent reporting reveals that the club also has attempted, and then withdrawn, trademark applications for a popular football fan chant that doesn't even originate with Liverpool FC fans.

Liverpool FC made an audacious attempt to trademark the popular terrace chant ‘Allez, Allez, Allez’, it has been revealed. The Reds’ owners FSG made an application to the intellectual property office to trademark the words last November, according to iNews, only to later withdraw it. ‘Allez, Allez, Allez’ has become synonymous with the Anfield faithful having adopted it last year during their run to the 2018 Champions League final.

However, Liverpool were not the first side to adopt the chant, with the song reportedly sung by fans of FC Porto as far back as 2016 and the likes of Genoa, Juventus and Napoli all coming up with their own versions. Fans of Aston Villa, Rangers, Atletico Madrid and even Cardiff City are also said to have appropriated the popular terrace chant.

Making this all the more stupid is that the chant is from a song created by an Italian band in the 80s. So, Liverpool FC fans occasionally use a fan chant appropriated by fans of other clubs, which stems from an Italian band from a few decades ago... and decided to try to trademark it?

So of course there was more fan backlash again, both before and after Liverpool FC had withdrawn its application. The real question is why the club seems to think it needs to lock up language that is generic or common across its geographic area and/or marketplace, to the detriment of everyone else?

Filed Under: allez allez, fans, football, liverpool, soccer, trademark
Companies: liverpool fc

Fans, Indie Soccer Clubs Slam Liverpool FC For Trying To Trademark 'Liverpool'

from the pool-party dept

Covering trademark nonsense, our posts tend to intersect regularly with the world of sports. It's relatively common at this point to witness teams and even entire leagues pulling anti-fan trademark stunts, from athletes trademarking their own nicknames no matter the fallout, to leagues considering messing with the trademark applications of video game companies, up to and including iconic baseball teams managing to trademark the derisive nickname given to them by other teams. It's all very, very stupid.

Across the pond, however, teams in the Premier League have somehow managed to get trademarks on their home-city's names. Chelsea FC, for instance, has a trademark for "Chelsea" related specifically to football services and merch. This sort of thing is almost never allowed here in the States, but it's become enough of a thing that Liverpool FC is attempting the same move for "Liverpool" and it's pissing off a whole bunch of people.

As was the case with Chelsea FC, Liverpool FC insists its mark will be very narrow.

The Reds stress their application is "only in the context of football products and services", and intended to protect both the club and the supporters "from those benefiting from inauthentic products".

There are a couple of problems with this. For starters, the general public has apparently become educated enough on the practices of trademark abuse to want to push back on the application themselves. Given how ignorant the general public has long been on how broad trademarks can be abused, this is rather encouraging to see.

A petition has been launched on Change.org that, at the time of writing, had already gathered more than 850 signatures in the space of a few hours.

It said: "This petition is to keep [the word Liverpool] for all people of Merseyside to use without a solicitor's letter dropping through your door. Do the right thing. Let's stop this."

Twitter user Azul wrote: "The club only need see how unpopular this is with its own fans to realise their greed is going too far. Not everyone has the budget for official merchandise, and there’s many making a living from this. Turn it in lads."

Negative feedback from the public goes on from there, including from local ward Councillors. But you have to also wonder just what the granting of such a trademark would do to City of Liverpool FC, an independent club that plays in the Northern Premier League.

City of Liverpool FC, who play in the Northern Premier League, called the move "outrageous" on Twitter. A spokesman for the club told the ECHO : "Our club is one of many that will be affected by this trademark application made by Liverpool FC.  We as an ambitious and independent football club feel that we are entitled to use the name of our city in our name. We understand that LFC may not have intended to threaten the future of our club, but that is an effect of this application, but even just on a moral basis, we don't think any private business should be able to own the word 'Liverpool' - it simply does not belong to them."

Beyond any moral concerns, this is exactly why many trademark systems put such a high bar on attempts to trademark geographic terms. That term is typically more widely used than any kind of creatively inspired name or term, as is the case here. For a given industry, never mind something as popular as football in the UK, there is likely more than one player in a geographic area. Allowing any one of them to gobble up the rights to a geographic term for that entire industry, even an industry as narrow as football, is insane.

Fellow Twitter user John Furlong called for a campaign against the "ridiculous idea", adding: "The name of the city does not belong to any one individual or group."

Not so in the case of Chelsea, as we've said. But that's a problem, not a precedent worth repeating.

Filed Under: fans, football, liverpool, soccer, trademark
Companies: liverpool fc