A trademark application for the Fenway Sports Group-owned Boston Red Sox has been withdrawn.
The Red Sox, it emerged last week, had been seeking to trademark the word ‘Boston’ for ‘entertainment services, clothing and other purposes’, with two other Major League Baseball teams, Seattle and Houston, having applied for similar trademarks.
The move, which was filed with the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) on March 17, was specifically related to the trademarking of the name of the cities related to baseball marketing, although with other professional sports teams and major sporting colleges having a potential crossover into media and entertainment.
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The applicant, according to USPTO filings, was Boston Red Sox Baseball Club Limited Partnership New England Sports Ventures, LLC.
But in a statement shared with the Boston Herald, and published via US sports business website Sportico, FSG chief and Liverpool principal owner John W. Henry, claimed that the decision to trademark the ‘Boston’ name in relation to baseball was driven by the MLB itself.
Henry told the Boston Herald in a written statement: “Major League Baseball initiated, oversaw, and directed a trademark application on behalf of three of its clubs, including the Boston Red Sox [and Mariners and Astros].
“Major League Baseball—not the Boston Red Sox—initiated this filing.
“Today, at our request, MLB has agreed to withdraw the application. MLB’s intent was to protect these clubs’ use of their city name in connection with professional baseball services and apparel, not an attempt to own the city name or prevent others from using the city name.”
While Henry has claimed that it was the MLB who were behind the move to trademark the name, FSG have been in a similar situation previously with regards to Liverpool.
Back in 2019 the Reds owners had sought to trademark the word ‘Liverpool’ in what they argued was related purely to purely “football products and services” and designed to try and stop others from benefiting from the sale of ‘inauthentic products’.
At the time the club had insisted that all revenue from protected services and products using the word ‘Liverpool’ would be channelled into reinvestment in the club itself, including infrastructure and transfers, but that did little to appease the fanbase with the attempts met with an angry reaction in many quarters.
The attempt to trademark the word was ultimately rejected by the government’s Intellectual Property Office due to the “geographical significance” of the city. The decision was heralded as a “victory for common sense” by the club’s most prominent supporters group, Spirit of Shankly.
Former Reds chief executive Peter Moore told the ECHO following the ruling: “We underestimated the reaction to it. We had, in very good faith, looked at what we were seeing on a global basis and particularly stuff that was coming into the UK. We felt obliged to protect the football club and had looked at other similar situations for clubs that had trademarked their place names in a football context, there are numerous examples.
“We felt that on behalf of the club we needed to do that - but I think it’s fair to say that we underestimated the emotional reaction to it and that’s our bad. Whilst we continued with the filing, we received the rejection from the IPO and we accept that and move on - we have got plenty of other stuff to do.”
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