Bill Belichick’s Taylor Swift tweaks not enough to get around Patriots’ trademarks

Bill Belichick ran into a roadblock while trying to trademark four phrases with the U.S.

Patent and Trademark Office.

The USPTO shot down four applications filed by Belichicks company, TCE Rights Management LLC, which is managed by his 24-year-old girlfriend, Jordon Hudson, due to the likelihood of confusion with previously filed trademarks that the Patriots Belichicks former NFL employer hold.

The trademarks in question are for four phrases that TCE Rights Management LLC submitted to the USPTO, which included Do Your Job (Bills Version), Ignore the Noise (Bills Version), The Belestrator (Bills Version) and No Days Off (Bills Version).

The phrases sans the Bills Version were trademarked by the Patriots in years past, and the USPTO wrote that it rejected the request because it is likely consumers would be confused, mistaken, or deceived as to the commercial source of the goods and/or services of the parties.

The addition of a term to a registered mark has often been found to increase the similarity between the compared marks where, as in the present case, the dominant portion of the marks is the same, the USPTO wrote.

In its application, TCE Rights Management LLC indicated it sought the trademark for clothing, audio and video streaming material, books, and the production of media.

The USPTO is giving the 73-year-old Belichicks company three months to appeal its ruling.

Trademark attorney Josh Gerben wrote on his website that the attempt to trademark the phrases by adding the Bills Version moniker mimicking Taylor Swifts strategy when she re-recorded old songs didnt work because the beloved songstress was dealing with copyright law rather than trademark law.

The song titles were not protected by trademarks (as the title of a single work of art is not protectable as a trademark), therefore, she could simply add Taylors Version at the end of the song title and re-release the new recording, he wrote.

Belichicks case is much different.

Trademark law is about brands names that identify products or services.

Adding Bills Version to an already registered trademark doesnt create a new brand; it just makes a confusingly similar version of an existing one.

Thats why the USPTO sided with the Patriots and denied Belichicks applications.

Gerben noted in the post that Belichick could attempt to file a petition to cancel the Patriots trademarks if they arent actively using them, which would open the door for Belichicks applications..

This article has been shared from the original article on nypost, here is the link to the original article.