The World Wrestling Federation lost a court battle in London, England to the World Wildlife Fund. The decision would force the Federation to give up their “scratched-steel” logo and the WWF.com URL, which gets over 1 million hits per month. The Fund’s argument was that the “glorification of violence” presented by the Federation was affecting the Fund’s reputation.
The question is, how binding is this decision in the US? Could an appeal to the FTC or other agency in this country possibly stop this ruling from being enforced?
IANAL, but I do believe that the US and the UK are two separate countries and if the two WWFs want to have a steel cage match to decide who owns the rights to the initials that they will have to come back to this side of the pond to decide it.
I’m pretty sure both organizations have U.S. Trademarks on their names, which shouldn’t be a problem since they don’t conflict in their area of business.
Pretty much what BobT said with the addition that I believe what they are fighting over is whether or not the wrestlers can use the initials ‘WWF’ outside the US.
The injunction against the wrestlers comes into force on October 1, subject to appeal. It will bar them from using the initials WWF anywhere except the US, where it will be able to refer to itself orally as WWF, and to advertise and market sporting events as WWF.
I’m not quite sure what the wrestlers lose in the US then.
Likely they will have to maintain two different websites, one for the US and one for elsewhere. The website was a major issue in the lawsuit. World Wildlife Fund has been using WWF as their general trademark for many years prior to wrestling, and is a .org group. The wrestling is a .com
IIRC, according to the NPR report I heard this morning, as well as a link somwhere, the two groups had an agreement allowing the wrestling group to use the title WWF in the US only. A few years ago, the wrestling group reneged on that agreement; hence the lawsuit.
All the more reason for the WWF for making those damn foreigners from countries like Britian, Canada, and Iran the ant-american heels they deserve to be.