Army Officially Opposes Vegas Golden Knights Trademark

[Yukon Joe]

Lawyers charge $100+/hr (nice work if you can get it).

On the one hand, you should know that a lawyer's hourly rate is not what the lawyer takes home as pay. That hourly rate has to pay for all the support staff, rent, insurance, etc.

But on the other hand, you should know that $100/hr is cheap. Dirt cheap. According to Canadian Lawyer magazine, hourly rates start at around $200/hr, and can top out at more than $500/hr. And that's just Canada.

http://www.canadianlawyermag.com/staticcontent/AttachedDocs/CL_June_16-Going Rate.pdf

 

[nobody important]

Rouge et noir would have been a great name. REDBLACKS (they trademarked it all caps and asked media to write it that way previously) is juvenile.

Rouge et Noir is the team name in our other official language. Rouge et Noir D'Ottawa - Site officiel

As for this trademark dispute, I think that Vegas should have to forfeit all wins obtained using this name, and be declared ineligible for the 2018 draft.

 

[LadyStanley]

@Yukon Joe -- it's been a few decades since I last had to get a lawyer to do something for me. Would not be surprised at all on doubling of basic cost. (Have heard that some lawyers charge $500+/hr)

Lawyer/clerk has to research image/word marks in database (things anyone with time and access could do) as well as prepare the application, but then if there are issues, you might be happy to have lawyer on your team.

 

[LadyStanley]

Army, Vegas Golden Knights working on settlement over name dispute

On Jan. 25, Black Knight Sports and Entertainment LLC — owner of the Vegas Golden Knights — filed a “motion for suspension for settlement with consent” with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. The motion was granted, which means the company and the Army have until April 25 to settle the dispute out of court.

So, we have a deadline.

 

[LadyStanley]

US Army goes to war with Vegas hockey team, Golden Knights, over naming rights

“The Army and the team have been actively negotiating a "coexistence agreement" which would allow both parties to define their respective interests in their trademarks, and avoid the appearance of Army endorsement or public confusion regarding use of the Golden Knights name,” Alison Bettencourt, public affairs spokesperson for the Army Marketing and Research Group, said in a statement to Fox News.

 

[Jeffrey93]

Should've gone with Vegas Knights, sounds better....and would have avoided all this crap.

 

[LadyStanley]

Should've gone with Vegas Knights, sounds better....and would have avoided all this crap.

Nope. There's a CHL team that would have been upset.

 

[AmericanDream]

Nope. There's a CHL team that would have been upset.

yeah, they only own the name in Canada...hahaha

 

[adsfan]

It's officially a kind of big deal.

Here's the official filing if you want to read it: USPTO TTABVUE. Proceeding Number 91238886

From my quick scan, it looks like they're worried about confusion regarding the ownership of the team (Foley vs the US Govt) and the Army Black Knights hockey team themselves.

The Army connection being front and center when it comes to the justification for naming the team the Golden Knights seems to work against Black Knight Sports and Entertainment ( ) in this case.

BB: I forwarded this to my daughter. She is a 1L and wants to go into patent law. The general public doesn't hear about this kind of thing every day.

 

[adsfan]

Thing is, the Golden Knights are there for PR and recruitment. They travel the US(and world I believe) to do demonstrations at Air Shows and other events for civilians.

By Vegas commendeering their name, they've effectively lost all control over people's perception of the meaning of that name. Now, if your average civilian sees that the Golden Knights are coming to an Air Show, they'll think "Why the hell is a hockey team going?"

I met a few of the parachute team at an air show in Dayton, OH around 1980. One guy landed on a fence. I told him where the First Aid tent was at, because his forearm was all scraped up. He said "No thanks, I will be okay". Pretty tough guy considering what his arm looked like. It had to hurt plenty!

 

[BattleBorn]

BB: I forwarded this to my daughter. She is a 1L and wants to go into patent law. The general public doesn't hear about this kind of thing every day.

This is a great thing to show her if this is her real interest.

She’s likely already way more qualified than me, but in my experience this has everything to do with the DoD making sure they’re able to continue calling the parachute team the Golden Knights and almost nothing to do with them wanting the hockey team in Las Vegas to not be called the Golden Knights.

 

[adsfan]

This is a great thing to show her if this is her real interest.

She’s likely already way more qualified than me, but in my experience this has everything to do with the DoD making sure they’re able to continue calling the parachute team the Golden Knights and almost nothing to do with them wanting the hockey team in Las Vegas to not be called the Golden Knights.

This was her response:

I talked to my property professor really quickly about this because it seemed to me like the team lawyer made a mistake by continuing to allow people to make public statements referencing the parachute team. One of the easiest trademark defenses is for the Army to say our golden knights are a “household name” and therefore get protection from someone else diminishing their brand. But in order to establish this there needs to be evidence where people are surveyed and it becomes clear they associate golden knights with the army team. So my prof suggested like I thought that Vegas didn’t do themselves any favors by talking about the parachute team because there is now a much larger segment of the population like me who knows about the parachute team. Vegas will probably try and argue that they are a hockey team and not easily confused with a parachute team, while the Army will characterize them both as sports/entertainment. So maybe Vegas thought they had a good chance to win the suit or they really just didn’t care about being sued because publicity is always good? Apparently there is also a new federal intellectual property law so without knowing how that changes things the case may not be as much of a bad idea for Vegas as it appeared at first glance.


Back to me. I didn't know about the new Federal law. I sat through a presentation at work by our company patent attorney on how to document your work to make it stand up in court. That was about 18 months ago. It could have been before the new law was passed. The media doesn't have the time or the expertise to cover that beat any more. Remember when each of the major networks had a Supreme Court reporter? Some of those guys are on Court TV or whatever name they are going by these days. When somebody loses a big case, then it will get some airplay!

 

[Shawa666]

yeah, they only own the name in Canada...hahaha

Yeah, but the Vegas knights as members of the NHL have to be able to operate in the US and in Canada...

 

[BKIslandersFan]

Yeah, but the Vegas knights as members of the NHL have to be able to operate in the US and in Canada...

In hind sight it might have been cheaper to deal with London Knights than US freaking Army, lol.

 

[Zenos]

Nope. There's a CHL team that would have been upset.

We've seen the Rangers, Hurricanes, Whalers, and Oilers in the CHL (probably some others I can't think now) before, so it's not entirely unheard of. Whether London was open to negotiate an arrangement with Vegas is another question, but I'd say it probably wouldn't have been such a cased-close decision.

 

[canuck2010]

Huh, had no idea this was an issue.

We sure live in a complicated world.

 

[Hoek]

We've seen the Rangers, Hurricanes, Whalers, and Oilers in the CHL (probably some others I can't think now) before, so it's not entirely unheard of. Whether London was open to negotiate an arrangement with Vegas is another question, but I'd say it probably wouldn't have been such a cased-close decision.

The fact that there were the IHL Atlanta Knights before tells me the London thing is so overblown.

 

[LadyStanley]

Vegas Golden Knights, US Army look to settle trademark dispute – Las Vegas Review-Journal

VGK working with Army on joint use settlement.

College filed extension on their dispute; still considering options.

 

[gstommylee]

so the college is going to keep on asking for extension over extension just to make up its mind.

 

[hangman005]

so the college is going to keep on asking for extension over extension just to make up its mind.

I bet their student's don't get extension over extension to complete their assignments... they shouldn't either

Also has any in the world ever heard of the college before the trademark business?

 

[Bixby Snyder]

Nope. There's a CHL team that would have been upset.

Bill Foley could buy the entire OHL with pocket change, you're kidding yourself if you think some junior team would be any kind of obstacle.

 

[LadyStanley]

But neither the teams nor the league are for sale. Not all teams make beaucoup bucks.

 

[BKIslandersFan]

Bill Foley could buy the entire OHL with pocket change, you're kidding yourself if you think some junior team would be any kind of obstacle.

Yea, I can't imagine that was ever really an issue.

 

[mouser]

so the college is going to keep on asking for extension over extension just to make up its mind.

Maybe they're trying to get Foley to settle for some amount and he's simply saying Nope.

 

[Yukon Joe]

Maybe they're trying to get Foley to settle for some amount and he's simply saying Nope.

It doesn't look like anyone is paying anyone else. They're just negotiating an agreement where everyone agrees that they each own their own respective marks, but put limits on what each of them can and can not do with them.

Such negotiations can be tricky because they're important. Back in the late 1980s the World Wildlife Fund and the World Wrestling Federation signed such an agreement over the use of the term WWF. They both could use the term, but the wrestling people were somewhat restricted in how they could use it. Anyways the wrestling people wound up violating the agreement, were sued by the wildlife people, and in the end they changed the whole company name to WWE.