After my previous post about the new waffles googlebomb, I noticed something interesting on JohnKerry.com (click here for a screen capture of the site.)
Posted on 04/04/2004 10:33:33 PM PDT by AJ Insider
After my previous post about the new waffles googlebomb, I noticed something interesting on JohnKerry.com (click here for a screen capture of the site.)
The graphic featured above includes the NCAA's logo for the Final Four and the logo found on the Kerry site that is very similar to it. When you click on it on Kerry's site you go to another page with a poll (to see a screen capture of the poll click here.)
I did some quick googling and was able to find some background information on the NCAA and its rights to the "Final Four" name. A ruling by the WIPO about a misleading domain name that the NCAA disputed includes information about patents, trademarks and service marks:
Complainant has been using the mark "FINAL FOUR" since the late 1970's/early 1980's. It is the owner of several trademark registrations in multiple classes for the "FINAL FOUR" mark worldwide, including in the United States Trademark Office with United States Trademark Registrations No. 1,488,836, 1,164,713, and 1,367,874. It also states that "FINAL FOUR" has been published for opposition in the Official Gazette of the U.S. Patent and trademark Office as a servicemark under Serial Number 75/826675. Furthermore, Complainant has been using "FINAL FOUR" on the Internet at "www.ncaa.org" and "www.finalfour.ne" to promote the tournament and future tournaments in the named host cities for the 2001-2007 Final Four. Lastly, it states that "FINAL FOUR" is immediately recognizable as the mark for the NCAA’s annual college basketball championship.
A Sports Law News article from 2000 discusses measures the NCAA has taken in the past:
He added, "While it seems extreme for us to ask somebody to take down a sign with ‘Final Four’ in their restaurant, the fact is if we don’t we run a very real risk of basically losing control."
A recent article in Slate discusses this issue as well:
There are some high-school basketball purists who insist that the phrase "Final Four" was first used in connection with Indiana's legendary annual tournament (which inspired the film Hoosiers). But the official NCAA story is that "Final Four" was coined by a Cleveland Plain Dealer sportswriter, Ed Chay. In a 1975 article for the Official Collegiate Basketball Guide, Chay wrote that Al McGuire's Marquette squad "was one of the final four" in the previous year's tournament. Something about the phrase struck a chord with the NCAA's marketing folks, and they started capitalizing it as "Final Four" in 1978. It is, of course, now trademarked. (College hockey is stuck with the nickname "Frozen Four" for its national semifinals.)
Another domain name dispute ruling is posted by the National Arbitration Forum. It also finds that:
Complainant holds U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (“USPTO”) Reg. Nos. 976,117; 1,790,366; and 1,483,616, among others, for the NCAA mark as listed on the Principal Register. Complainant also owns USPTO Reg. Nos. 2,377,720; 1,792,749; and 1,786,019, among others, for the FINAL FOUR mark as listed on the Principal Register.Complainant has used the NCAA and FINAL FOUR marks in tandem since at least 1977. Complainant uses its NCAA FINAL FOUR combination of marks in conjunction with one of the premier sporting events in the world, namely, the NCAA college basketball tournament. Complainant uses the NCAA and FINAL FOUR marks in national and international broadcasting, licensing and marketing promotions, and sells millions of dollars of merchandise annually bearing the NCAA and FINAL FOUR marks. The 2000 Men’s FINAL FOUR games were broadcast to an estimated 141 million households outside the U.S. in 119 countries while capturing nearly 40 million viewers in the U.S. alone.
I looked for other links but any searching for terms that include "final four" this time of year found results with a lot more chaff than wheat. I don't know all of the legalities involved, but I'm sure Glenn Reynolds or another law blogger might want to discuss this further. More screen captures related to this issue are found in the extended entry below.
All graphics below are thumbnails - click on them for larger versions.
Screen Capture of the Front Page
Screen Capture of the Front Page Graphic
Screen Capture of the Poll Page
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