UK Politician Threatens To Sue Football Team For Infringement If It Moves, But Keeps Its Name

from the does-this-really-need-a-lawsuit dept

While I'm not all that familiar with football clubs in the UK, here in the US when a sports team moves, it almost always changes the "location" part of the name to match their new location. So, when the Brooklyn Dodgers moved to Los Angeles, they became the LA Dodgers. That seems perfectly reasonable, but is it worth a trademark lawsuit? Reader Jamie, points us to the news that UK Parliament Member David Lammy (last seen here on Techdirt defending the idea of kicking people off the internet for infringement) is threatening to sue the Tottenham Hotspur for infringement if they move away from Tottenham, as the club would apparently like to do. Of course, what I don't understand is why the club would want to hold onto the old location after it had moved. Why would that even make sense? I guess the closest example I can think of in the US was the legal fight over the Angels baseball team, which went from being the Anaheim Angels (or California Angels before that) to the ridiculously long Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, to try to play up the LA connection. But, again, is this really an "intellectual property" issue? Perhaps a UK football fan can explain to us why a team not in Tottenham would wish to keep the Tottenham name.

Filed Under: david lammy, infringement, tottenham, uk
Companies: tottenham hotspurs