under armour – Techdirt (original) (raw)

You Don't Own What You've Bought: Under Armour Smart Hardware Gets Lobotomized

from the pray-I-don't-alter-our-deal-further dept

Time and time again we’ve highlighted how in the modern era, you don’t really own the hardware you buy. In the broadband-connected era, firmware updates can often eliminate functionality promised to you at launch, as we saw with the Sony Playstation 3. And with everything now relying on internet-connectivity, companies can often give up on supporting devices entirely, often leaving users with very expensive paperweights as we saw after Google acquired Revolv, then bricked users’ $300 smart home hub.

The latest chapter in this ongoing saga comes courtesy of Under Armour, which in 2016 launched a $400 bundle of smart devices it dubbed the “Healthbox,” which included a “smart scale,” a wrist-worn health tracker, and chest-wrap heart monitor. All of these devices were tied together via the company’s Under Armour Record app, which bundled all of your health data and presented it to you in an easily-digestible way.

But by 2017 Under Armour had given up on the project, and began pulling the Health Box from store shelves. Users that had spent hundreds of dollars on the products could still use them — until now. Last week, the company stated the Record app would no longer work, urging customers to head to the company’s MapMyFitness platform, which the company insists provides “an even better tracking experience.” Users say that’s not actually the case, and the new platform only does a fraction of the overall data collection the original offering did.

Because actually treating these customers well would cost Under Armour extra, it not only didn’t give users a heads up that the app would stop working last week, it didn’t provide users any effective way to export their data:

“Current device owners also can’t export all their data. While workout data can be exported and transferred to some other tracking app, Record users cannot capture weight or other historical data to carry forward with them. A reader tells Ars that Under Armour did not provide any notification of Record’s demise to customers who were using the app, basically springing the sunset date on them as a silent surprise.”

Cool. Things you own that suddenly either stop working or getting updates is par for the course in the internet of things era, something owners of older Sonos platforms are also learning the hard way after the company first stopped supporting older hardware, then launched a program that effectively bricks perfectly usable gear. Not only is such behavior a great way to sour your brand in the eyes of users, it creates oceans of waste thanks to pricey hardware that no longer does what the manufacturer once promised.

Filed Under: fitness, fitness tracker, healthbox, iot, ownership, smart scale
Companies: under armour

from the the-case-is-over dept

Earlier this year, we sued ICE over its failure to provide relevant documents in response to a FOIA request we had made late last year. Late last week that lawsuit came to an end, after we agreed to dismiss it after ICE finally handed over the documents we had requested, which should have supplied last year. What we have now learned is that ICE didn’t even bother to look in the proper place for the documents, and (not surprisingly) that once they handed over the documents, they reveal that ICE’s legally-confused, bragging press release about all the domains it had seized… was not even remotely accurate. Perhaps that’s why ICE didn’t want to share the details with us or anyone else.

First, a bit of history. For years we’ve been calling out ICE for the very questionable practice of seizing websites for large companies in response to claims of possible copyright infringement. Indeed, First Amendment case law makes it pretty clear that law enforcement can’t shut down an entire bookstore or an entire publication just because there is some possibly illegal content within that publication or store. Yet, ICE seemed over-eager to seize lots of websites and grandstand about it. In following up on those cases, we’ve shown that ICE made serious mistakes, often relying on claims from industry partners, such as the RIAA, without any actual evidence. This resulted in things like ICE quietly returning a hip hop blog it had seized and held for over a year (including engaging in secret proceedings before a judge that even the site’s lawyer was blocked from learning about), admitting that it had no evidence for the seizure. In another case, it returned another hip hop blog five years after seizing it, without ever presenting any evidence for why it seized the site.

So we were confused and amazed last fall when ICE put out a ridiculous press release again hyping up its efforts to seize websites, claiming that over 1 million domains had been seized. The press release was written in a confusing and legally nonsensical manner, frequently confusing the difference between copyright and trademarks — which is pretty shocking for a supposed law enforcement agency. For example, it talks about seizing “a copyright-infringing website offering counterfeit integrated sensors.” Counterfeiting is a trademark issue, not a copyright one.

Because of this, we filed a FOIA request, seeking the list of the “over a million websites” the press release claimed were seized under Operation In Our Sites, and also requested the communications with the various “high-profile industry representatives” that the press release stated helped ICE with these seizures. ICE responded (late) that it couldn’t find any such records, despite multiple requests and an appeal, leading us to sue. As we noted during our appeal, it “strains credulity to believe, and it is impossible to accept, that ICE doesn’t have a single record related to the names of domains it had just seized.”

After many months, ICE has finally explained why it failed to find any records, and provided what records it does have (with some mostly silly redactions). Let’s start with the reason why it couldn’t find any records. According the declaration of Toni Fuentes, in the ICE FOIA office, they didn’t bother to look in the part of ICE that ran the program and issued the press release. ICE is broken up into various “offices” including “the IPR Center” which focuses on intellectual property issues. However, the ICE FOIA office decided that other parts of ICE were the places to look.

Upon receipt of a proper FOIA request, the ICE FOIA Office will identify which program offices, based on their experience and knowledge of ICE?s program offices, within ICE are reasonably likely to possess records responsive to that request, if any, and initiates searches within those program offices. Once the ICE FOIA Office determines the appropriate program offices for a given request, it provides the POCs within each of those program offices with a copy of the FOIA request and instructs them to conduct a search for responsive records. The POCs then review the FOIA request, along with any case-specific instructions that may have been provided, and based on their experience and knowledge of their program office practices and activities, forward the request and instructions to the individual employee(s) or component office(s) within the program office that they believe are reasonably likely to have responsive records, if any….

[….]

The ICE FOIA Office determined that because of the subject matter of Plaintiffs? FOIA Request, HSI and OPA were the offices likely to have responsive records. The ICE FOIA Office instructed HSI and OPA to conduct a comprehensive search for records and to provide all records located during that search to the ICE FOIA Office for review and processing.

Notice that the IPR Center is not one of the offices searched, even though it was the office that issued the press release in question and is directly named in the press release. OPA makes at least a bit of sense, because it handles ICE’s interactions with the media, so would likely have helped in reviewing the press release — but would be unlikely to have the records we were requesting. HSI handles “investigations” for the Department of Homeland Security, and was mentioned in the press release as helping to take down a single website. After the FOIA office handed off the task to HSI, apparently a few special agents did somewhat random and haphazard searches of their own emails and turned up nothing.

Within C3, one Special Agent conducted a search of his computer and Outlook using the term ?IPR? and ?ICE IPR Center? based upon the press release provided by the Plaintiffs and his subject matter expertise. No records responsive to the request were located. One Special Agent conducted a search of his computer and Outlook using the terms ?seized? and ?website? based upon the press release provided by the Plaintiffs and his subject matter expertise. No records responsive to the request were located. One Special Agent conducted a search of Outlook using ?Operation In Our Sites? based upon the press release provided by the Plaintiffs and his subject matter expertise. No records responsive to the request were located.

And here’s the key part. That last agent suggested that maybe ICE should be asking the IPR Center to respond… but no one did anything about it:

However, this Special Agent did note on the returned search form that he believed the IPR Center may have responsive records. However, the IPR Center was not tasked to conduct a search at this administrative level and on February 19, 2019, the ICE FOIA Office notified the Plaintiffs that no responsive records were located.

Eventually, much, much later, someone finally gave the FOIA request to the “program manager” for Operation In Our Sites within the IPR Center, and that person found 75 pages, which were only given to us months after we sued (amusingly, the Fuentes declaration has some fun with the timelines, in suggesting that the IPR Center was told to do this search long before we sued, and then stops providing dates, such as the fact that they didn’t give us these documents until months after we sued. The 75 pages, combined with the Fuentes declaration above, reveal that the ICE press release was a total joke and a complete exaggeration. First off, most of what happened had nothing at all to do with ICE. At best it was taking credit for seizures done by Europol, Interpol and various police agencies, as well as common every day takedown notice sent by various companies, which it appears ICE included in its numbers.

ICE further provided that of the websites that were criminally seized, the majority of them were seized by Europol, Interpol and police agencies from 26 different countries and that these partners did not share the domain names of those websites with ICE. Further, in regard to the remaining domain names, other industry partners were involved in the seizure of those websites and did not provide the domain names of those websites to the IPR Center. Lastly, ICE was not involved with and does not have any records relating to, any court filings relating to the seizure, civilly or criminally, of domain names.

Indeed, despite the press release clearly indicating that ICE was the one filing court cases — including criminal cases — to seize these domains, ICE admitted directly to us “ICE wasn’t involved in the filing of any court documents.”

So, what was included in those 75 pages? What appears to be nothing more than a PR campaign to allow ICE to puff up fake seizures of websites in advance of the press release it wanted to put out in association with Cyber Monday last year. The Program Manager of Operation In Our Sites apparently just emailed a bunch of big name retailers asking for stats:

Good afternoon,

I am sending this email as a reminder that Operation Cyber Monday 2018 will be concluding in a little over a month. I am hoping you can send me your statistic on the number of infringing websites and E-Commerce links that your company has civilly seized/taken down by COB November 16, 2018.

Lumping together “civilly seized/taken down” does a lot of heavy lifting in making this effort seem like a much bigger deal than it is. As the details we’ll show below make pretty clear, by asking for “civilly seized” and “taken down” as a single number, ICE gets to pretend that sites were seized using civil seizure procedures (for which there would be legal paperwork), when they’re mostly just taken down thanks to standard everyday takedown notices.

The various companies then responded, giving a wide range of results — most of which appear to just be them getting various e-commerce sites (it appears to mainly be eBay/Alibabba/Amazon and some other market sites) and social media sites to remove links to what they claim are counterfeit products. Amusingly, in some of the emails, “Operation Cyber Monday” is redacted. In others, where it’s the exact same email, it is not. Just last week, after we raised questions about a bunch of the redactions, ICE gave us a “supplemental” response, in which it changed some of the reasons for some of the redactions and removed all of the redactions on the phrase “Operation Cyber Monday 2018” which never should have been redacted in the first place.

What remains redacted is mainly who the companies are and which people at the companies are engaged in this effort to shut down websites and e-commerce links. Most rely on either (b)(6) or (b)(7)(c) redactions, both of which are for “unwarranted invasion of the personal privacy” while a few (b)(7)(d) redactions remain. Those are especially odd as that’s for disclosing “the identify of a confidential source.” It is difficult to see how these individuals should be considered confidential sources.

Also, for what it’s worth, while the names of the companies that participated in this charade are technically redacted, with a little sleuthing, it is not that difficult to figure out who most of them are. In digging into the details, we’ve identified a variety of clothing/footwear/accessory companies, including Chanel, Abercrombie & Fitch, Victoria’s Secret, Burberry, Under Armour, and Nike. It is unclear why ICE sought to keep those names secret, except that in the Fuentes declaration, it is admitted that these companies only agreed to participate in this propaganda campaign in exchange for anonymity and that they not be named as partners:

Each of the companies whose name and/or address has been withheld under Exemption 7(D) provided information to ICE to assist in a federal criminal law enforcement investigation under an expressed promise that ICE would not reveal to the public that they participated in this Operation. If released, foreseeable harm would result to both the companies that provided the information under the promise of confidentiality and to ICE, who relies upon the information these companies provide during the course of their law enforcement operations.

This seems highly questionable. We wouldn’t go about releasing names of sources that would result in real harm, but it’s difficult to see how revealing that Nike or Victoria’s Secret have worked with ICE to take down Chinese links selling counterfeit merchandise does any harm to the continued efforts to find and take down counterfeit offerings. It seems the only “harm” would be some level of embarrassment to the companies for teaming up with ICE at a time when many consider ICE to be kind of toxic. But embarrassment to a brand over its associations is not a legitimate reason to withhold their names.

Even more to the point, from everything given to us, the claim that this somehow harms ICE’s “law enforcement operations” is equally ridiculous, since ICE admitted that it didn’t do any law enforcement operations here. It just asked everyone to tell them what they had gotten taken down so it could hype its own “participation.”

As for the claim that over a million sites were seized — that number seems to come almost entirely from one participant (the one company whose identity we couldn’t backtrack, unfortunately), which claimed that it, alone, had been able to get 1,168,543 “unique host site URLs” offline. This company seemed particularly active in taking down sites, but no further details are given:

Indeed, this number is so out of sync with all of the other numbers, that it makes you wonder if the 1 million number is actually unique URLs or if they actually mean something else, like social media links or something. None of the others come anywhere near this number, and many are are just a few hundred or a few thousand links. Without this one unnamed company, there is no “1 million sites” that ICE can claim for itself (despite not doing anything). Also, it is clear that those sites were “taken down” and not “seized.”

Nearly all of the other ones show very few websites taken offline, with most of the focus being on e-commerce sites listing counterfeits or social media posts showing the same. So, for example, this appears to be Chanel’s list, which had the second most sites taken down at 13,657, though many more market and social media listings:

And here’s Abercrombie & Fitch who “submitted” 726 websites.

What appears to be Victoria’s Secret reported just 8 websites that it got “removed.”

What appears to be Burberry took down just under 600 “infringing websites.”

What we believe is Under Armour provided the most detail in their response in taking down 211 websites, though it sounds as though it was mostly just talking to Shopify, which helped them takedown websites offering counterfeit goods, rather than “seizing” the sites as the whole operation press release suggested:

And, finally, what is likely Nike took down just under 2,000 websites and a small number of Facebook and Instagram links but helpfully highlighted how many estimated “followers” it removed. But also the person from Nike “look[s] forward to continuing to work with you and figuring out ways to expand on our current partnership.”

All in all, it seems like this is mostly these companies finding counterfeit sellers and getting those links taken down, mostly by going to intermediaries and asking for them to be shut down. That seems mostly reasonable, though there is always the risk of false accusations and legitimate sites and sellers being shut down. However, the key here is that ICE’s boastful press release, in which it couldn’t tell the difference between copyright and trademark, appeared to a bunch of nonsense, taking credit for the work that these companies had done in asking for various links to be removed — and hyping it up as if these had been “seized” by the government.

All in all we’re glad that ICE finally provided this information, though it shouldn’t have required a lawsuit to make it happen. It does seem to show, as we expected, that ICE was exaggerating what was happening, and certainly exaggerating and playing up its own role in these “seizures” (most of which appeared to be takedown requests that ICE had nothing to do with). Special thanks to the team at Cause of Action, a non-profit focused on transparency and accountability in government, for representing us in this litigation.

In the meantime, since we’re just weeks away from Cyber Monday 2019, we’re curious to see if ICE makes another one of these announcements. At the very least, we hope this year they figure out the difference between copyright and trademark. Even better would be to just come out and admit that what they’re exaggerating as some sort of legal/judicial process is really just a bunch of companies sending takedown notices that have nothing to do with ICE. Or, best case, maybe ICE gives it a rest this year. Somehow I doubt it will.

Filed Under: copyright, counterfeits, dhs, domain seizures, foia, ice, ipr center, trademark
Companies: abercrombie & fitch, burberry, chanel, nike, under armour, victoria's secret

Under Armour Can't Help But Issue A Cease And Desist For Tiny Clothier Cascade Armory

from the ready-fire-aim dept

Athletic clothing maker Under Armour has graced our fair pages a few times in the past, always for being on exactly the wrong side of the trademark equation. Between trying to torpedo tiny Christian companies like Armor & Glory, and ensuring that every member of the public is aware that its own executives don’t have a sense of humor that they are aware of by suing Ass Armor, the mega-company has been quite busy making sure the entire world knows that only it is allowed to use the word “Armour.” Notably important in all of this is that the company is exactly wrong in this claim, as trademark law nearly always comes down to whether customers will be confused by the use of words and trade dress, and it is not a platform for a single company being able to lock up a fairly common word.

This is a lesson that apparently hasn’t stuck for the folks at Under Armour, however, as the company has recently fired off a C&D letter to another tiny clothier, Cascade Armory.

According to Source Weekly, a start-up clothing store in Bend, Oregon named Cascade Armory has received a cease and desist order from the gigantic corporation claiming that the tiny store’s brand could cause confusion to the billions of dads and bro-dudes who wear Under Armour’s ass-ugly athletic gear.

As you can see from the [below] picture, the logos of both companies share almost no similarities—other than the word “armor” which UA seems to have trouble spelling.

Here are the logos in question.

The first thing that should immediately jump out at you is just how insane any claim that there is the potential for customer confusion here would be. Cascade Armory isn’t even using the word “armor”, never mind the British spelling that Under Armour uses. On top of that, all of the dress and iconography is significantly different. Add to all of this that Cascade Armory isn’t an athletic clothing maker, but a traditional one, and that should be the final nail in all of this. Under Armour can play make-believe pretending it lives in a world where it can tell everyone else on the planet that they cannot use any words that are even close to “armour” if it wants, but it simply isn’t true.

And, yet, the company makes demands far outside its legal rights.

In the cease and desist order, Under Armour demanded that Cascade Armory abandon with prejudice its application for trademark and any other applications and registrations for marks comprised of or containing the term armory, armoury, armor, armour or any misspellings or variations thereof. The company demanded Cascade Armory permanently quit using, registering or applying to register the Cascade Armory mark and any versions containing the same versions of ‘armory’ or ‘armor.’ Also, they demanded that Cascade Armory deactivate its website and social media pages that contain the same words.

These demands are flatly obscene given the flimsy nature of Under Armour’s basis for all of this. Of course, we’ve said many times that big companies play the trademark bully because it works, largely because it can scare the hell out of startups and small companies that don’t have a comparable legal war chest with which to work.

While the owners of Cascade Armory, Alex and Diana Short, have no intention of kowtowing to Under Armour’s bullying tactics, they also admit that a legal fight against the conglomerate would put their young business in peril.

Which is why companies like Under Armour get away with this nonsense. Why they feel the need to do so is an open question.

Filed Under: armory, armour, clothing, trademark, trademark bullying
Companies: cascade armory, under armour

from the armor-all dept

Under Armour, the clothing brand built on the idea that my belly fat should be clung to by a shirt while I shoot hoops in my backyard, has built up quite a reputation for itself as a trademark bully. To go along with the fun story of its battle against Ass Armor, Under Armour is notorious for trademarking roughly all the things when it comes to sportswear and equipment, and has always had a liberal idea of just how much control the law allows it to have over the use of the word “armor.” Most times, very little public attention is whipped up. But now they’re picking a fight with God.

In 2013, a Bible-quoting high school football champ named Terrance Jackson, upset that most of the clothing options for his 3-year-old son were covered in skulls and crossbones, decided to start his own “inspirational apparel” company with a scripture-inspired name, Armor & Glory. It recently received some major attention from America’s second-biggest sportswear empire, Under Armour, which demanded the small Maryland company change its name or face all-out legal war.

“It’s trademark bullying at its finest. I’m the little kid in the group and they’re trying to kick dirt on my new shoes,” said Jackson, 37, who said the name came to him one morning, from “the full armor of God” cited in Ephesians 6:11. “When God gave this [name] to me, I never thought once about those guys. We don’t even spell it like them.”

Indeed, much as Ass Armor did, Armor & Glory’s name doesn’t include the “u,” unlike Under Armour. Which is only a minor point, actually, because the chief test here is customer confusion and brand identity, and it takes a more imaginative mind than mine to think up exactly how a company selling a few hundred shirts is going to be mistaken for the clothing company currently chasing Nike for the sportswear crown. More troubling still is the nature of Under Armour’s request. The company’s legal representation requested not only that all of Armor & Glory’s inventory be destroyed, but that it would also have to hand over its domain, profits, and $100k in damages and attorneys’ fees.

That would equate to about every last dollar the company has ever made, since its 2013 inception. More interesting, for me at least, is that the company’s core audience is Christian athletes wearing the gear in part due to the Christianity-inspired names and slogans. Lawyers for Under Armour have gone so far as to state that if Armor & Glory refuses to cease using the bible-inspired name, the result will be “an expensive and time-consuming legal battle.” A more bullying statement is difficult to compose. But Jackson, thus far at least, isn’t backing down. Why, you ask?

Ed Tomlin, Jackson’s partner and a former director of football development for Under Armour (who says he left on good terms), says “it’s a matter of principle and a matter of faith.” The name, he added, “was inspired by God. … To turn our backs now would be like we were being disobedient.”

How about that for a fun First Amendment test? If anything can whip up public support in a David v. Goliath legal battle, it’s the injection of some honest to goodness bible-thumping. In fact, Armor & Glory has reportedly increased sales and brand-awareness due to the threat from Under Armour, making it all the more silly for the larger company to have engaged in this silly bit of bullying to begin with.

Filed Under: armor, trademark
Companies: armor and glory, under armour

Under Armour Files Trademark Suit Against Ass Armor

from the turn-the-other-cheek dept

Show of hands: who remembers the North Face vs. South Butt saga? Ah, yes, the trademark battle built perfectly for those of us with a sophomoric sense of humor, fully entertained us three years ago, when an upstart clothier attempted to be funny and the humorless lawyers at North Face cried consumer confusion. While the claim of confusion was as laughable as the rest of the story, the court proceedings saw South Butt agree to change its brand name. Which it did…to Butt Face, because why the hell not? South Butt/Butt Face, after all, was pimping its own publicity by streisanding its way through court proceedings, all thanks to North Face refusing to put down the litigation stick.

Perhaps snowboarder Casey Sherr was taking notes at the time for his eventual release in 2013 of his Ass Armor clothing company, which of course has Under Armour’s shorts in a twist.

The Ft. Lauderdale company faces a trademark infringement lawsuit from Under Armour — and plans to fight. The $3 billion Baltimore athletic apparel maker also accused the snowboard shorts maker of unfair competition and cybersquatting for using the name Ass Armor and a tagline that could be confused with Under Armour’s. The defendant copies Under Armour by using similar lettering and putting the Ass Armor name along the shorts’ waistband, the lawsuit says.

“Making matters worse, similar to Under Armour’s well-known and widely promoted Protect This House tagline mark, defendants use, advertise and promote their Ass Armor mark, name and products… in connection with the Protect Your Assets tagline,” says the lawsuit, filed last month in U.S. District Court in Maryland.

Could the well-known Under Armour brand and imagery be somehow confused with Ass Armor and its logo?

Frankly, it stretches credulity to believe that such confusion is likely. More likely this is simply the latest in a long line of battles Under Armour’s legal team has staged for itself, having previously gone after Skechers, Salt Armour Inc., and others. Much like the South Butt case, it’s woefully likely that all the courts will see is the obvious play on some of the more generic aspects of Under Armour’s marks rather than actually weighing any real concerns over customer confusion.

What’s clear is that trademark wasn’t designed to keep this kind of stuff tied up in court battles like this. Unlike South Butt, Ass Armor appears to be willing to fight the battle.

“We strongly believe the lawsuit filed by Under Armour has no merit,” said Scherr, president of the company that makes only the padded shorts, in an email Thursday. “Ass Armor has spent months fighting with Under Armour in front of the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board and then, without notice, Under Armour filed this matter in federal court. We believe this is a classic David and Goliath battle. As David, we intend to fight.”

Protecting its assets is part of the Ass Armor way, after all.

Filed Under: trademark
Companies: ass armor, under armour

Sports Stars Rushing To The Trademark Office: Fear The Brow & That's A Clown Question, Bro

from the fear-the-clown-brow-question-bro dept

Ah, the wonders of trademark law and sports stars. Earlier this year, we wrote about the rush to trademark “Linsanity” when afterthought point guard Jeremy Lin suddenly became an overnight sensation for the NY Knicks. In that case, a bunch of others sought the trademark, and a week or so later, Jeremy Lin himself jumped in to try to get the trademark as well. A quick search at the USPTO shows nine “live” trademarks on Linsanity (well, eight that are just “Linsanity” and one that is “Linsanity 17” — which is Lin’s uniform number). For what it’s worth, it seems like only one of those marks is actually held by Jeremy Lin, and it certainly looks like there may be some overlap, so perhaps there will be some litigation at some point.

Apparently, young sports stars are very quickly learning to rush to the trademark office. Baseball phenom Bryce Harper — at 19 already living up to the massive expectations Sports Illustrated lumped on his shoulders three years ago — recently got some attention for telling a Canadian reporter “that’s a clown question, bro” in response to a question about his favorite beer and if he was going to go out and celebrate with a beer since he’s of legal drinking age in Canada (where they were playing).

The very next day, Harper filed for a trademark on “that’s a clown question, bro.” It almost makes you wonder if he’d been saving up that line… As of the latest search, he’s the only one filing for it so far, but the link above notes that a brewery in Colorado has already brewed up a batch of beer called “Clown Question, Bro.” Since Harper’s application is for apparel, it’s unlikely it applies to beer. Though, if it were me, I probably would have called it “Clown Question, Brew.” Either way, Under Armour, the sporting goods company that Harper has a deal with already, has said that it’s going to be releasing a “line” of shirts around the “clown question, bro” phrase.

Meanwhile, moving back to basketball, there’s the news that NBA-bound college hoops star Anthony Davis has filed for trademarks on both “Fear the Brow” and “Raise the Brow” after his… er… “trademark” unibrow. His explanation?

“I don’t want anyone to try to grow a unibrow because of me and then try to make money off of it,” Davis told CNBC. “Me and my family decided to trademark it because it’s very unique.”

I’m not quite sure how one “tries to grow a unibrow” if they don’t have one already — and if they legitimately have one, then why is it that only Davis gets to make money from his unibrow? For what it’s worth, as the article notes, the phrase has been popular for a while, surrounding his success at Kentucky, but he couldn’t profit from it as that would cut into his eligibility as an amateur (cue rant about stupid college sports rules). Either way, lots of “bootleg” apparel was sold — some of which the university tried to stop, though I’m not sure they had any legal basis for doing so in many cases. There was also one local store, Blue Zone, that sold stuff and filed for its own trademark on the phrase for apparel. There may be an issue there. Davis’ trademark application is super broad in terms of what he claims it will apply to. Blue Zone’s mark is just for clothing, but Davis’ is for a ton of stuff, including clothing, but also fragrances, entertainment “services,” water bottles, book covers, pencils, trading cards, lunch bags, facial tissues and much, much more.

Does Davis have the right to supercede Blue Zone’s mark just because he’s the one who has the actual unibrow?

Either way, it seems like a sign of the times, that sports stars these days are rushing to the trademark office at every opportunity to file trademarks on some identifying characteristic. I’m not sure this is a positive development.

Filed Under: anthony davis, bryce harper, clown question, fear the brow, linsanity, uspto
Companies: nba, under armour