In related news, the A's have filed a trademark application for "Las Vegas".

What about the Angels?

Can I trademark "woke"? I know there are some lawyers on this site! It would be cool if I get paid whenever someone says that. Let me know thanks.

The application says the Red Sox first used "Boston" "At least as early as 12/31/1953," which makes it sound like there are no records of it before then. There's probably some legal reason for that date. The Braves left whatever word they used for "Boston" before the 1953 season.

Can I trademark "Baaaahhhhhston?" Or is that the intellectual property of every movie ever set in Massachussetts?

Not that I hang out in sports souvenir shops but it does seem to me that neither the Bruins nor Celtics make much use of "Boston" and of course the Pats ignore it completely so it might not be as ludicrouse as it first sounds. I'm sure the marathon would be open to a name change. :-)

EDIT: Ludicrouse is the worst rapper name ever.

If you could trademark cities, it would have been done long ago. I’d be curious on what actually happened to allow such a boneheaded filing. The March 17 date suggests that alcohol may have played a role.

The March 17 date suggests that alcohol may have played a role.

There are many holidays that Maryann Licciardi at Cowan Leibowitz might celebrate with excess enthusiasm, but I am pretty sure St Patty's day is not one of them.

Reminiscent of the old Indiana Jones RPG wherein TSR tried to trademark the term Nazi™.

Not that I hang out in sports souvenir shops but it does seem to me that neither the Bruins nor Celtics make much use of "Boston"

That's strange, since the Celtics wore a "BOSTON" road jersey while winning their first 8 NBA titles, and have trotted it out periodically many times since then.

I can almost see there being a case if the idea is to target the guys setting up shop outside Fenway on game days with crass t-shirts that don't have any actual Red Sox trademarks on them but don't exactly reflect the atmosphere they're trying to sell (he says, while wearing a hoodie that basically has the Citgo logo with "Fenway" instead of the oil company's name). I don't know that trademarking "Boston" would hit that many of those, though.

I'd be more likely to see it as targeting Boston Baseball, the pretty darn decent program you could buy for $2 outside the stadium on game day, but they seem to have folded sometime during the pandemic (although because "Boston Baseball" and even "Boston Baseball Magazine" or "Boston Baseball Program" are such generic terms and Google is so crap now, I can't find any indication that they officially called it quits on-line).

I've got more than a feeling that Tom Scholz would object to this.

I've got more than a feeling that Tom Scholz would object to this.

It's going to be long time before the Red Sox get that trademark, if Scholz has anything to say about it.

I wonder if filing for a stupid trademark, then withdrawing it because it's stupid, establishes a precedent that would prevent others from applying for the same trademark. Like, if Sam Adams brewery decided as part of their Your Cousin From Boston campaign they should trademark "Boston", and USPTO receives the application, does the fact that the Red Sox (or MLB on their behalf) had previously submitted something then withdrew it because it was stupid give USPTO something they can cite as "see, it's already established this is stupid, please go away"? Or even "hey, in this withdrawn application it's noted that the Red Sox have been using this in marketing for 70 years, surely Barstool Boston Douchebros can't claim the trademark for 'Boston'"?

I'm gonna TM oxygen. Every time someone breathes, I get a penny.

I wonder if filing for a stupid trademark, then withdrawing it because it's stupid, establishes a precedent that would prevent others from applying for the same trademark. Like, if Sam Adams brewery decided as part of their Your Cousin From Boston campaign they should trademark "Boston", and USPTO receives the application, does the fact that the Red Sox (or MLB on their behalf) had previously submitted something then withdrew it because it was stupid give USPTO something they can cite as "see, it's already established this is stupid, please go away"? Or even "hey, in this withdrawn application it's noted that the Red Sox have been using this in marketing for 70 years, surely Barstool Boston Douchebros can't claim the trademark for 'Boston'"?

No. Withdrawn applications have no official impact at all.

I can almost see there being a case if the idea is to target the guys setting up shop outside Fenway on game days with crass t-shirts that don't have any actual Red Sox trademarks on them but don't exactly reflect the atmosphere they're trying to sell (he says, while wearing a hoodie that basically has the Citgo logo with "Fenway" instead of the oil company's name). I don't know that trademarking "Boston" would hit that many of those, though.

Just off the top of my head, the broader play here may be an attempt by MLB to extract revenue from now-unlicensed trading card companies that don't use the teams' names, logos or (pretty much) colors, but do identify players as playing for Boston, Seattle, etc.

A five-minute legal analysis:

Generic terms such as "table" or whatever are not registrable as trademarks at all, and must be disclaimed (i.e., the owner does not claim exclusive right) in any registered mark containing them.

Terms that are merely descriptive aren't registrable as trademarks ("trademark" is not a verb!) unless the applicant can show that they have used the descriptive term in commerce exclusively, and for a long enough time, that consumers have come to associate the term with the applicant as an "indicator of source" rather than just to describe the goods/services. A term like BOSTON would be considered primarily geographically descriptive, but that presumption could theoretically be overcome by such a showing.

The 1953 date on the Boston application is an attempt to claim that the Red Sox have "acquired distinctiveness" (term of art) in the term BOSTON by being the exclusive user of it for baseball games, etc. since the Braves left town. As I said, in theory this could work. I'm not aware of any cases (but I haven't looked) where a term has been found to be "geographically generic" instead of "primarily geographically descriptive." Even if BOSTON isn't found to be generic and thus completely unregistrable, the exclusive use requirement would seem to be a problem, as other teams have used BOSTON for baseball (just not at the MLB level), and certainly for whatever other goods/services they tried to apply for.

Can I trademark "woke"? I know there are some lawyers on this site! It would be cool if I get paid whenever someone says that. Let me know thanks.

I'm gonna TM oxygen. Every time someone breathes, I get a penny.

Um, that's not how trademarks work. Not even a little bit.

Both of those words have already been registered as trademarks many times, in many countries.

Um, that's not how trademarks work. Not even a little bit.

Surely you can't be serious.

If you could trademark cities, it would have been done long ago.

I always assumed that was why Constantinople appears as Istanbul on maps -- they couldn't get the rights.