The USPTO Denied the Washington Leaders Trademark: What’s Next for the Franchise?

It was a seismic off-season for the Washington leaders. Notably, the franchise is on the cusp of acquiring a new owner with the Josh Harris Group An agreement was reached to buy the team for $6.05 billion. after the other NFL Owners agree to sell This new system may face an evolving situation regarding the team’s name. United States Patent and Trademark Office Deny the privilege request To trademark the title of “Washington Leaders”.

Specifically, the application was denied for two reasons. The first was due to the “potential for confusion” with the “Leaders’ Classics” – pa college football A game between the Air Force and the Army – a trademark indeed. The other stems from a pending request submitted by Martin Macaulay, a D.C. area man who submitted trademarks in an attempt to guess the name of the new team. “Washington Space Leaders” and “Washington Wolf Leaders” are Two of several trademark applications It was sent by Macaulay that helped with this rejection of the NFL franchise.

Washington began the name change process back in July of 2020 when it decided to pull the “Redskins” moniker that had been associated with the team since 1933. At that point, the franchise called itself the “Washington Football Team” for two seasons (2020-2021) as a reserve Until they took on a permanent nickname. This came in February of 2022 when they did Unveiling the title of “Leaders”.

So what happens now? like Trademark attorney Josh Gerben notes, the team can submit a response to the USPTO arguing that it is unlikely to be confused with the “Commanders’ Classic” game. They can also try to buy the rights to the game or sign a cohabitation agreement. With Macaulay, tell the Washington Post Back in July of 2020 he would deliver any brands the team might need at no cost.

Of course, we’ll now have to see if Macaulay stands by those comments now that the rubber is in the way on the matter.

From the leaders’ perspective, they seem confident they can secure a nickname brand.

“The Trademark Office’s recent non-final office procedure is a normal step in the standard trademark registration process,” said a spokesperson for the team. Professional Football Talk. “We will respond to the Trademark Office’s action and are confident that our registration will be issued. In particular, there is no possibility of our leaders’ marks being confused with the classic leadership football match between the Army and Air Force. We do not believe any trademark registrations were obtained by the authors The hand who tried to profit from the club’s name change should stand in the way of our registrations.”

Therefore, it seems that all roads will lead to the leaders getting their coveted brand. Having said that, it would be a nice turn of events if this situation opened the door for this new ownership group to change the name again if they weren’t happy with the “Leaders” moniker.