Last week Ball-Wonk picked up the news that a Cincinnati company called Bygone Sports might win a case with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office granting them the rights to the name Washington Nationals. Today, ESPN and The New York Times are reporting that the dispute will go to a judge in April, and a loss in the case there might necessitate a name change for the beleaguered Washington franchise. Ball-Wonk, whose post covers the implications pretty thoroughly, suggests we keep our name and shorten the moniker on the jersey to just “Nats,” which most of us call them anyway. I like the Nats idea, but think we should change the long name to the Washington Natropolitan Baseball Club.

One of our diligent writers did some background research on the Bygone trademarks at the USPTO website. Regarding the Nats issue, he says:

If you look at the trademarks, they have to claim what commerce the mark is to be used on.

For the Nationals, it only appears to be clothing: t-shirts, caps, jackets, pants, shorts; sweatshirts, sweatpants, jerseys. So those are the only grounds on which they can pursue infringment – clothing. There are other uses which are not claimed (print use of the logo, for example).