NFL: Who dat trying to steal our trademarks?
Image via Wikipedia
It’s nice to finally see that Louisiana politicians can actually accomplish something other than being on the business end of criminal indictments.
On Tuesday — notwithstanding all the other issues going on in Louisiana — politicians of various stripes banded together to thwart the NFL’s efforts to trademark various customs surrounding the New Orleans Saints in the days leading up to Super Bowl XLIV.
USA Today reports Tuesday that the NFL dropped its claim to have exclusive ownership rights to the silly saying that Saints fans have been fond of for years, “Who dat?” among other things.
“Who dat” is a quip culled from an old poem that Saints fans have for some odd reason chanted at games for years. “Who dat? Who dat? Who dat say dey gonna beat the Saints? Who dat? Who dat?” goes the whole chant.
It sounds kind of idiotic, but Saints fans seem to love it and for one season in their otherwise lackluster history, they have good reason to be proud getting caught saying such nonsense in public.
And the NFL tried to say after all these years that it’s their trademark right before the Super Bowl. The organization also tried to lay claim to trademark rights over the fleur-de-lis symbol that adorns the Saints helmet and the black and gold colors that the team wears on its uniforms.
This made retailers and merchandise-peddlers fear the NFL’s retribution for selling items containing the “Who dat?” phrase. So politicians in Louisiana, ranging from Attorney General Buddy Caldwell to U.S. Sen. David Vitter flogged the NFL publicly, leading to the NFL’s capitulation.
Trademark enforcement is a legitimate business right for anyone or any organization looking to protect its intellectual property. But the NFL only would have had to spend a few minutes on the Internet to see it had no inherent trademark right to customs and symbols that even predate the NFL’s existence.
A search on Google Books for “Who dat?” shows the phrase was appearing in books as far back as the 1922 edition of the Journal of American Folklore. And then dozens of times since then.
And black and gold is hardly the exclusive color scheme of the Saints, as a quick tour of a Google image search turns up several other teams with similar colors.
Finally, one could be completely ignorant of French history and still know the fleur-de-lis traces its origins back for centuries.
So nice try, NFL. Just let the fans enjoy this one.
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If the NFL had no hand in creating the phrase, then (one would hope) they have no right to claim trademark infringement.
When the team was terrible, no one probably cared much about anything like the fleur de lis. Perhaps the Unknown Comic should have sued fans wearing the “Aints” paper bags on their heads.
(I’m glad the NFL lost this. For some reason, I think the Saints colors and logo are incredibly cool and compelling. And their idiosyncratic name probably never would have passed the focus group test if the team were to be founded today.)
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