FanPost

NFL Pressures a fan to abandon "Harbowl" Trademarks

Interesting and related to the discussion of the trademarks filed by Colin Kaepernick in recent days (See Also: Colin Kaepernick post-Packers week included six trademark applications), apparently a fan of the Indianapolis Colts filed trademarks for the terms "Harbowl" and Harbaugh-Bowl" early in the season. Shrewd (naive?) business move, though I am not aware of the legal ramifications of such things. What are the rules with regards to "trademark squatting," if any? I know that there are laws in place to prevent people from squatting on Internet domains simply to collect a payday, but ignorant on trademarks....or if the two are somehow related.

(Side note: Oddly - the URL Harbowl.com was created in January 2011 and updated just this month. Using a WHOIS search, it appears to be owned by an offshore company (perhaps German?))

In response to the filing, the NFL evidently pressured the fan to abandon his trade marks.

Anyway, I wanted to share with the community and see what I can learn about this trade mark stuff!

Yet another interesting topic for the week....

This is a FanPost and does not necessarily reflect the views of Niners Nation's writers or editors. It does reflect the views of this particular fan though, which is as important as the views of Niners Nation's writers or editors.