Golden Knights Trademark denied by US Trademark Office

[LawMan]

The Vegas Golden Knights seems to have hit another snare in the road.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on Wednesday denied the Vegas Golden Knights' trademark request, citing a "likelihood of confusion" with the Golden Knights of The College of Saint Rose in Albany, New York.

From my reading on the issue this is not nearly as big a deal as it sounds like at first blush, in fact it's fairly common for the Trademark office to initially deny a request and then allow said request once the party appeals- which requires providing arguments for why no "confusion" will occur between the requested mark and existing marks. I'm fairly confident we'll see the Vegas Golden Knights take the ice next season, it still looks pretty bad on the team and the league though...

http://www.espn.com/nhl/story/_/id/1...-patent-office

[2014olympicgold]

I feel like this should have all been done prior to the delayed ceremony.

[Kofax]

It's sometimes hard to check absolutely everything to make sure there isn't any conflict, and in this case, they wanted to keep everything a secret for a big reveal, which means the application wouldn't have been submitted until after the reveal, I think?

Still, I do agree that it's not a good look.

[Run!]

It was a dumb name anyways.

When I think of Vegas, I think of girls and booze, but mainly gambling.

I assume I'm part of the 99th percentile here.

Why then are they not called the Vegas Aces? An Ace is a term that can mean greatness both on or off the felt.

It's inevitable moving to Vegas will bring gambling associations. Why not embrace it?

[ericdaoust]

IMO they were denied because the name is not very good.

[RizzeeDizzee]

As an IP lawyer, I can tell you that although this is not great news it's also far from devastating. They could either find a way to argue against it, or enter into a coexistence agreement, or just pay the other trademark holder to step aside. But yeah - either whoever was tasked with doing front end trademark clearance dropped the ball or some bigwig chose to proceed despite an at best uncertain landscape.

I'm also surprised they didn't try to get the trademark filed on an intent-to-use basis, which allows you to basically get it allowed then, once you actually use it, it becomes registered.

[iwinthings]

It was a dumb name anyways.

When I think of Vegas, I think of girls and booze, but mainly gambling.

I assume I'm part of the 99th percentile here.

Why then are they not called the Vegas Aces? An Ace is a term that can mean greatness both on or off the felt.

It's inevitable moving to Vegas will bring gambling associations. Why not embrace it?

because the sport that encourages bare knuckle face punching and just moved a professional team to sin city wants to also be a wholesome family affair at the exact same time. makes complete sense right?

[agentzero]

1) AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

2) LawMan is right, this happens all the time. Trademarks are often delayed, denied and even litigated on the issue of "no possible confusion" with other brands, in other industries, with similar names...

They should have made a partnership with the Casino and named them the Golden Nuggets, if anything. This despite the NHL's hypocritical stance on the name not being allowed to reference gambling.. in LAS VEGAS...... Don't many NHL arenas sport legalized gambling methods like slots etc. (Pittsburgh and San Jose come to mind..). So gimme a break NHL.. Anything would have been better than this LA Kings turned 300 of Sparta knock off..

Why does the NHL continue to be such a joke league... I swear my university intramural hockey league was run with more diligence and better marketing strategies...

[Bass56]

Why then are they not called the Vegas Aces?

Lol, because this thread would still exist, only the conflicting team names would be different...



There is hope that they can find a solution to keep the name. Just looking at the ECHL teams above, at least 5 franchises have conflicting team names with other franchises: Oilers, Thunder, Mavericks, Eagles, Steelheads...

At least the good ol' SolarBears name seems to be safe

[lucafen4]

So there' still hope they'll go with the Dam Canyons or Golden Rats??

I for one hope they have to change the name.

While I don't worry as much about Vegas sustaining a team, I do worry that the NHL has selected a 'poor' ownership group (poor as in bad, not wealth)

[Godin]

The Vegas Golden Knights seems to have hit another snare in the road.



From my reading on the issue this is not nearly as big a deal as it sounds like at first blush, in fact it's fairly common for the Trademark office to initially deny a request and then allow said request once the party appeals- which requires providing arguments for why no "confusion" will occur between the requested mark and existing marks. I'm fairly confident we'll see the Vegas Golden Knights take the ice next season, it still looks pretty bad on the team and the league though...

http://www.espn.com/nhl/story/_/id/1...-patent-office

....or once the right pockets are lined.

- - - Updated - - -

Just drop the 'Golden'. They will eventually anyways.

[rataylor22]

....or once the right pockets are lined.

- - - Updated - - -

Just drop the 'Golden'. They will eventually anyways.

Then they run into the London Knights, which was the problem to begin with.

[Godin]

Then they run into the London Knights, which was the problem to begin with.

2 different countries.

[STONE.]

2 different countries.

But they need to play in and sell merchandise in both.
Kinda like back in the day when the band "Bush" had to be "Bush X" in Canada.

And all the questions about why this wasn't cleared beforehand? I'm guessing they really didn't want it to leak -- they worked hard to market the surprise (and then failed miserably with tech issues on the night it was released).

This will all be forgotten soon enough.
I do think the name is kinda dumb, but there are a lot of dumb names out there (Toronto Raptors?). After a while, they all just seem normal.

[Godin]

But they need to play in and sell merchandise in both.
Kinda like back in the day when the band "Bush" had to be "Bush X" in Canada.

And all the questions about why this wasn't cleared beforehand? I'm guessing they really didn't want it to leak -- they worked hard to market the surprise (and then failed miserably with tech issues on the night it was released).

This will all be forgotten soon enough.
I do think the name is kinda dumb, but there are a lot of dumb names out there (Toronto Raptors?). After a while, they all just seem normal.

So true.

...and oh yeah. The marketing of course.