MLB battling finance website over trademark of the letter ‘W’
If we could proceed with some actual baseball games (spring training works just fine), we’d all be very happy. In the interim, we’re left counting down the days until camp opens, speculating a little further about which teams will compete for postseason positions, and analyzing legal disputes over letters in the alphabet.
Yeah, the latter is a real story, because according to Steven Overly of the Washington Post, Major League Baseball is now engaged in a legal battle with the financial advise website WalletHub.com over their logo, which happens to be a W.
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The W on your right, to be more specific.
According to MLB’s claims, WalletHub’s representation of the letter W may confuse fans of the Chicago Cubs and Washington Nationals, who own brand-based trademarks of the same letter.
Of course, for the Cubs, a giant flag featuring a blue W flies outside of Wrigley Field following every victory. It’s also the source of merchandising revenue (as seen in the picture above) as it appears on several different items sold around the ballpark. As for the Nationals, who currently use the curly W as their primary logo, it’s a historic and merchandising trademark dating to the Washington Senators days.
The trademarked Ws in question are obviously well distinguished, but it’s still the league’s fear fans will incorrectly assume the website is connected to or in some way endorsed by those franchises.
“We have been engaging in conversations with Evolution Finance about how its mark can be used and registered so as to avoid confusion with the MLB marks. We believe we are close to a resolution and are interested in resolving this matter amicably,” said league spokesman Matt Bourne.
Based on the response of S. Lloyd Smith, the attorney representing Evolution Finance and WalletHub, a resolution may not be as close as the league thinks.
“It is common for trademark owners to sometimes overreach in protecting their marks. They’re always concerned or cautious that if they don’t enforce their marks they might lose their rights. The real question is why does MLB care? They don’t own the letter W. There’s lots of other Ws out there. They’re just plainly overreaching in this case.”
We’re not exactly legal experts, but it’s difficult to argue with where the WalletHub representation is coming from. While the W is undeniably the centerpiece of their logo, the design and green background should be enough to eliminate confusion. In fact, to this point, Evolution Finance CEO Odysseas Papadimitriou says there’s been no confusion in his business dealings.
“This dispute has not held us back from using it whenever we want,” Papadimitriou said. “We have been using it for two years plus and no one calls us and says, ‘Hey, I would like tickets for the Nationals.’”
They haven’t taken those calls yet anyway. That will probably change now that this story is making the rounds. But the point is fans, casual fans, non-fans, and really anybody whos come across these logo is far more aware than MLB seems to give them credit for. This seems like time, energy and money better spent elsewhere.
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Mark Townsend is a writer for Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @Townie813
