The Stanley Cup vs Stanley cup (branding)
- Thread starter LadyStanley
- Start date
No Fun Shogun
34-38-61-10-13-15
The NHL is no match for meme fads. Hopefully this Stanley Cup isn't lined with lead as well, at least.
Side tangent, the SPHL should absolutely partner up with the Dixie brand so that their championship trophy is the Dixie Cup.
Side tangent, the SPHL should absolutely partner up with the Dixie brand so that their championship trophy is the Dixie Cup.
edog37
Registered User
No Fun Shogun
34-38-61-10-13-15
No grounds. Stanley predates the NHL and their marketing doesn't use the "Stanley Cup" terminology. That's just the colloquial term used by consumers, largely unaware or uninterested in the Stanley Cup.
edog37
Registered User
They market “cups” as in Stanley cups on their website. I’ve seen other leagues sue for a lot less. Plus, it gets the NHL’s name out there. Why do you think the NFL is so protective of its branding? They even tried to get the name “The Big Game” branded.
No Fun Shogun
34-38-61-10-13-15
I'm looking over their website, and it looks like they don't use the word "cup" in any prominent fashion. The item in question is called a "Quencher," and their other similar products seem to be listed under tumblers or drinkware.
They in fact seem to go out of their way to not call them cups, barring possibly being buried among product descriptions.
I have a hard time imaginging that a judge would force an older entity to drop their name or any side reference to products being as generic as a cup.
They in fact seem to go out of their way to not call them cups, barring possibly being buried among product descriptions.
I have a hard time imaginging that a judge would force an older entity to drop their name or any side reference to products being as generic as a cup.
LadyStanley
Registered User
It was actually a clue on Jeopardy! last night.
"In 2024 a 40-ounce quencher tumbler from this company seemed harder to get than the same-named NHL trophy"
"In 2024 a 40-ounce quencher tumbler from this company seemed harder to get than the same-named NHL trophy"
edog37
Registered User
This article explains better than I could why there is like no trademark infringement.
Among other things, the NHL does not appear to have a trademark on "Stanley Cup" for drinkware.
Last edited:
Bear of Bad News
Your Third or Fourth Favorite HFBoards Admin
- Sep 27, 2005
- 13,519
- 27,015
You keep repeating this, but you need to show where the Stanley company markets the "Stanley Cup" (I agree with @No Fun Shogun - I see Quenchers but no Cups as products on their site).
I do see them market "Stanley Drinking Cups".
It's easy to sue; it's harder to win.
Not sure having more Google searches for Stanley Cup drinking mugs than the actual Stanley Cup is a big deal. Stanley Cup drinking cups did 750 million in sales last year so a lot of demand. Who is going to just type Stanley Cup for hockey? They are more apt to search by Stanley Cup finals, Stanley Cup Playoffs or NHL etc. Many ways to search hockey that comes up first.
Voight
#winning
Stumbledore
Registered User
Semantics? No. Copyright and trademark are two completely different fields of law.
IU Hawks fan
They call me IU
Honestly, I've thought for awhile that the NHL should lean more into Cup and less into Stanley in their marketing & branding. Not an official name change, of course, just points of emphasis: Make the word Stanley small and CUP big in logos, change hashtags to #CupPlayoffs & #CupFinal. Little things like that. The 'Because It's the Cup' slogan would've played nicely into this. Maybe go back to using Cup Crazy.
They have a bit of an identity crisis, because it's not the NHL Playoffs but the Stanley Cup Playoffs, which is very unique to them in North American pro sports but a bit of a mouthful and really long on graphics.
They have a bit of an identity crisis, because it's not the NHL Playoffs but the Stanley Cup Playoffs, which is very unique to them in North American pro sports but a bit of a mouthful and really long on graphics.
edog37
Registered User
Did you ever watch the NFL in action regarding the Super Bowl? Or any connotation to it? You protect your brand at all costs.
Bear of Bad News
Your Third or Fourth Favorite HFBoards Admin
- Sep 27, 2005
- 13,519
- 27,015
Did you mean to quote someone else? Because you responded to exactly 0% of what I said.
edog37
Registered User
How about no. The NHL has abandoned too much legacy as is. The Stanley Cup is the name of the Cup. It’s the name of the playoffs which sets it apart. There’s no identity crisis what so ever.
Yukon Joe
Registered User
Usual disclaimer: I am a lawyer, authorized to practice law in Alberta and nowhere else. I do not practice in this area.
Copyright and trademark are two different areas of law - but I would definitely not call them "completely different". In fact I learned about both in law school (at the mighty Robson Hall at the University of Manitoba) in a course called "Intellectual Property", together with patent law. All three are about the protection of ideas, not real* or physical property, and as such all have some things in common.
*"real property" has a very specific legal meaning - land - but I don't want to get into that right now.
Yukon Joe
Registered User
So my kids used to ask me "hey dad can you sue someone for ____".
I had a stock answer they asked me so much - all it takes to sue someone is a piece of paper and a filing fee. What matters though is if you can sue and win. (which is exactly @Bear of Bad News point - I'm just expanding on it).
As a billion dollar entity the NHL can probably throw it's weight around and sue individuals or small companies into oblivion no matter what the merit of its legal argument. The Stanley brand (which is owned by an even larger company) is worth hundreds of millions, if not billions, or dollars, so will have lawyers of it's own.
This kind of trademark dispute comes up all the time. Either two small, regional companies use a similar trademark, or two large companies in different areas use a similar trademark.
I can think of three examples off the top of my head. First a Canadian example - The Brick FIne Furniture (TBFF) was a small Winnipeg-based furniture company that had operated for over 100 years. The Brick was a furniture chain that started in Edmonton then expanded nation wide about 50 years ago. The Brick sued The Brick Fine Furniture - and lost. TBFF was there first, at least in Manitoba. However TBFF was to be careful to use its full name at all times, in order to avoid confusion.
Second example - Apple. Apple Records was a recording company started by the Beatles back in the 1960s. Apple Computer was started by Jobs/Wozniak in the 1970s. They mostly stayed in their own lanes for decades, but when Apple Computers started to get into online music (think iPod and iTunes) the two companies came into conflict. I don't know if it ever came to lawsuits, but both came to an agreement about the use of their respective trademarks.
Third example - WWF. There was both the World Wildlife Fund (later the Worldwide Fund for Nature), and also the World Wrestling Federation. Both used the acronym "WWF". At some point in the 1980s they came to an agreement between the two parties about how each could use the acronym and letters. Now what happened here is that the wrestling people changed their logo, which actually violated the contract between the two WWFs, the wildlife people sued, and as a result the wrestling people wound up having to rebrand as WWE. But note this was a contract breach - trademark law by itself would have allowed both to continue to call themselves "WWF".
The fundamental purpose of trademark law is to prevent consumer confusion. If there is already a well-established brand you can't start up a new company to try and cause confusion. If you tried to start a search engine in 2024 called "Goggle" you'd be sued into oblivion. But if there are two different trademarks, in two different areas of business (and in particular if they started up at roughly the same time period) both are entitled to their respective trademark in their respective fields.
As an aside - this is why you see a lot of compaies coming up with made-up names for either their products, or even their companies. A word like "Stanley" or "Apple" are relatively common, and any trademark protection you get is relatively narrow as a result. But if you come up with a brand new word like, say, Ozempic - you can control the entire word.
Yukon Joe
Registered User
But here's the thing - while both "Stanley" and "Cup" are fairly common words, when combined together as the "Stanley Cup" it's more unique, and as such the NHL has more of a claim to a unique trademark.
To go back to hockey though... the NHL is unique in making the trophy itself the focus. You win a ugly-ass trophy when you win the World Series, but the game is called the World Series (I can't even remember what it's called, or be bothered to google it). You win the VInce Lombardi trophy when you win the Superbowl, but the game itself is called the Superbowl, not the Vince Lombardi game. Same thing goes for the NBA finals.
So yes - the NHL absolutely could rebrand the finals as the NHL Finals - but I think a lot would be lost to both casual and hardcore fans.
cptjeff
Reprehensible User
It does, which is why the Stanley thermos corporation goes to pretty extreme lengths to not actually use those words together themselves. But they can't control what their fans on TikTok say anymore than the NHL can control what their fans post here.
And as to people citing the NFL, you realize that the NFL loses a lot of those suits and gets a ton of negative publicity when they file them, right? Protecting your trademarks is one thing, being a caricature of an evil corporation is another. I'm sure the NHL has written to Stanley- privately- and asked that they stay away from explicitly advertising the phrase themselves, while both sides laugh at the social media stuff.
The NHL is far better served by hockey fans posting pictures of players raising the cup under thermos posts on Instagram than they would be served with a lawsuit.
No Fun Shogun
34-38-61-10-13-15
Yeah, "Stanley cups" are a common parlance thing. They're not being sold or marketed as that, at least not through their official site (I'm sure you can buy one via a third party that isn't as particular with their terminology, but that'd be an infringement case with them and not Stanley).
The equivalent would be if a company named Super made assorted tableware products, among which were bowls. But imagine that said Super predated the NFL by a decade and their bowls were all called something else. Other people calling them "Super bowls" might peeve the NFL, and if a traditional third party site or store called them that on their marketing or product descriptions, the NFL would likely have grounds to sue them, but the NFL doesn't have exclusive rights to the word "Super" or really have a leg to stand on to stop a company older than them from making bowls after having already been making them for decades.
The equivalent would be if a company named Super made assorted tableware products, among which were bowls. But imagine that said Super predated the NFL by a decade and their bowls were all called something else. Other people calling them "Super bowls" might peeve the NFL, and if a traditional third party site or store called them that on their marketing or product descriptions, the NFL would likely have grounds to sue them, but the NFL doesn't have exclusive rights to the word "Super" or really have a leg to stand on to stop a company older than them from making bowls after having already been making them for decades.
Yukon Joe
Registered User
So I have to point this out - you'll never hear Stanley call their drinking container a "Thermos" - because Thermos is it's own separate trademark, owned by Thermos LLC.
The Stanley brand is also owned by Pacific Market International, LLC, which is itself owned by some other corporation - and isn't its own distinct company (I had to look this up myself).
But you are absolutely right - Stanley brand, as far as I can tell, never markets it's drinking containers a "Stanley Cup" - almost certainly to avoid any dispute with the NHL. Now it's possible they might be able to do so - that they could argue they've been in the drinking container business for over a century, that drinking containers are commonly called "cups", and that nobody would be confused between a sports trophy and a drinking container. Like I said this isn't my area of expertise. However even if there is no formal agreement between Pacific Market International, LLC and the NHL, the Stanley brand might well just be trying to avoid any unnecessary conflict.
By the way... a few months ago it was my wife's birthday. I was stuck for what top get her (and she didn't give me any ideas). I wound up getting her - a Stanley cup. It was stupidly expensive for a drinking container (I think $70 CDN) but damn if that wasn't one of the better gifts I've ever gotten her and she uses it every day.
As a further aside - at the end of my kid's hockey season where I was one of the coaches the team bought all of the coaches a Yeti coffee mug engraved with our team logo and also "Coach Joe". I was touched, and the Yeti mug is great.
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