A's Running into Issue with 'Las Vegas Athletics' Trademark

When the A's left Oakland after the 2024 season and decided to roll with no city designation for their interim years in Sacramento, that made things a little more difficult for people who produce A's content to find the right eyeballs. With a city attached, there is a more searchable term. "A's" can be lumped in with articles about grades or Chick-Fil-A's latest announcements.

Just searching for "Athletics" is too broad, as basically any college will have the college's name, then athletics. In both instances, you're not getting directly to the people you're after, unless they consistently look for nomad Athletics content.

According to a recent report, the A's application to trademark "Las Vegas Athletics" was recently denied by the United States Patent and Trademark Office. In the report, the reasoning given is that "the refusals, issued on December 29, reaffirm an earlier decision finding that the marks are primarily geographically descriptive and therefore not eligible for registration on the Principal Register."

In the decision online, it's clearly stated that Athletics appears to be too general. It states, "The wording ATHLETICS means "Activities, such as sports, exercises, and games that require plhysical skill and stamina. Please see attached dictionary definition from The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language."

They also note that the A's could look to excerpts from the websites of "Snoga Athletics, Crowned Athletics, BSN Sports, Grind Athletics, and MLB Shop that shows that the wording ATHLETICS is used to refer to the type of clothing worn while performing sports activities."

From Gerben IP: "As a result, the USPTO found that the marks merely describe a professional sports team located in Las Vegas rather than functioning as unique indicators of source."

The A's have reportedly attempted to overcome this by showing their multiple previous trademarks from previous stops in the team's history, with the Philadelphia Athletics, Kansas City Athletics, and Oakland Athletics all previously being approved. That appeal was denied because the USPTO believes that each application has its own merits, and shouldn't be influenced by previous rulings.

Typically professional sports teams don't run into these trademark issues, because there is such a correlation between a team's name and the sport they play. That's also where the A's run into a couple of problems.

While people are familiar with the franchise, they're often referred to as the A's, not the Athletics (until 2025). The brand isn't as big as a team like the Dodgers or Yankees, which seemingly affords them a little less leeway.

The other issue is that the word they're focusing on here, Athletics, is a common word that is used in other contexts. Las Vegas Athletics could be an intramural basketball league for adults. That seems to be the problem the franchise is running into here.

So what does this all mean?

In all likelihood this ends up getting sorted out just fine, though the timeframe is a little up in the air. They'll have to figure out how to make their case, and that will take time. How long this lasts could be interesting, with the team's planned move taking place in two years. One would think they'd like to start producing licensed merchandise well before that point.

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