Just a few short weeks after the new NHL team in Las Vegas revealed their name and logo, becoming the Vegas Golden Knights, the franchise’s trademark has been denied by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
Vegas Golden Knights Trademark Shot Down
Reportedly the reason it was shot down was the trademark shows too much similarity to The College of Saint Rose Golden Knights. Once the name and logo was announced, the Army announced they were looking into the trademark because of their Golden Knights paratrooper team.
Black Knight Sports and Entertainment Group does have the option to respond to the denial by giving arguments and providing evidence to support their registration.
Sports Illustrated staff writer Alex Prewitt noted that the Vegas group will use arguments such as the endless number of other teams, both collegiate and professional, that share the same name.
My read: Vegas’s eventual response to the trademark office will argue…
1) College of Saint Rose has no hockey team
2) “Intercollegiate.” pic.twitter.com/PtQPMugGMU
— Alex Prewitt (@alex_prewitt) December 8, 2016
The Vegas group stated they’ll present these reasons and more in a thorough typed response that’ll be filed no later than June 7th, 2017.
It’s confusing as to why Vegas and the NHL wouldn’t go through the trademark process before the name and logo were revealed. When people look at The College of Saint Rose they’ll automatically focus on the name Golden Knights. In this situation, the words Golden Knights and other wording doesn’t change the commercial effect. One of the issues is that the Golden Knights type stands out in the center of the logo and presents itself more stylized.
The Vegas franchise will be the NHL’s 31st team, hitting the ice beginning in the 2017-2018 season.
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