Tuesday, May 27, 2008

MLB to kids: You're not in our league :: The SouthtownStar :: News

MLB to little leaguers: we own the team names
A tenuous legal claim, at best. Some teams have names that cannot be protected under intellectual property laws because they are ordinary English words, like "Reds." If yuou want to call your Moscow, NY little league team the Moscow Reds there is not much MLB can do about it. It is possible to claim protection for unique names/spellings, like "Red Sox."

The little league got around the MLB claim by using the city names instead, which obviously cannot be claimed as anyone's unique property. The kids wear generic jerseys that say New York, then buy officially licensed Yankee caps, but do not call their team the Yankees. I call that "Yankee ingenuity."

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