Zion trademark conflict in the sports world
In the sports world, it’s not that strange when a famous athlete registers his/her name for trademark protection as it is their brand, their face in the market. The most predominant cause of this is the trademark “Jordan” successfully registered by the beloved athlete Michael Jordan for popular clothing and shoe lines through Nike. Tiger Woods is also a great example. Recently, another famous athlete has got into a little conflict trademarking his name “Zion Williamson”
Zion Williamson is a rising NBA superstar in the sports world. Accordingly, learning from his predecessors, he has taken the necessary steps to trademark his name for future potential commercial purposes.
The basketball player filed for trademark registration to the USPTO of the mark “Zion” and “Zion Williamson” and have successfully received protection for the marks.
However, it’s one thing to have the name protected, it’s another thing to enforce the protection, making other parties who want to register similar trademarks failed.
The above trademarks have been approved respectively in July and August 2021. Just months before these periods, in May 2021, Lee-Thompson, Babbette Michelle filed the trademark registration for the mark “Zion Influencers”.
On March 15th, 2022, the application is published for opposition and on April 14th, 2022, the status of the application turns into opposition pending.
Trademark battle for the Zion name
Although the mark ‘Zion Influencers’ won’t threaten the registration of Zion Williamson’s 2 trademarks as it has already been completed and the fact that the filing was made long after the filing of those applications, it can damage the athlete’s image in some way.
Specifically, in his opposition filing, Williamson claims that registration of the trademark ‘Zion Influencers’ will result in a likelihood of confusion. His legal team also states that registration of the term would create a false suggestion in the public’s mind that he is somehow connected to the brand, creating benefits for the applicants but damages for the NBA star.
On more analysis of the success rate of this opposition action, the chances are slim.
As Zion Williamson’s trademark classes are endorsement services, autographed goods, sports memorabilia, digital sports memorabilia, clothing, entertainment, and education services, providing information via print publications and the “Zion Influencers” mark’s description states the trademark will be used for marketing services.
While “endorsement services” and “marketing services” seem to be related to some degree, it’s hard to connect the brands together even with the claims that he is an influencer of Zion Williamson.
The athlete can’t own or oppose every trademark with the name “Zion” in it as this will create chaos. Imagine if the term “Smith” is trademarked, does it mean every other trademark with the words Smith is forbidden to register?
Zion can only oppose the similar marks within his same classes to acquire success. The proof of this is that there are over 150 live trademarks with the term ‘Zion’. Therefore, if this law is applied, Zion Williamson himself won’t be able to trademark his name last year.
***Other Articles***
– You could check Required documents of filing trademark in USA here.
– You could see What needs to be done after registering a trademark in US? here.
– You could visit here to see What is use in commerce of filing trademark in USA.
– You could also check here to see Procedure of Trademark in USA.
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