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| These fans might buy Cubnoxious gear |
I
still remember back in the days of the Chicago Bulls winning championship after
championship after championship and people were talking about this being a
“three-peat” that someone actually had the phrase trademarked so they’d be
entitled to some compensation for its greater use.
I
ALSO RECALL how someone thought they’d get ahead of the game by trademarking
the phrase “four-peat.” Of course, they were the ultimate loser because of
Michael Jordan’s stint in baseball that cost the Bulls a fourth consecutive NBA
title.
So
perhaps it’s in that light that I regard a recent ruling against a man from
Iowa who wanted to trademark the phrase “Cubnoxious.” His plan was to produce
t-shirts bearing the phrase which he’d presumably sell to people who find the
Chicago Cubs baseball franchise incredibly obnoxious and unbearable in its
existence.
I
have no doubt there’d be a market for such a product – particularly if one were
to focus their sales efforts to the area where the Bridgeport and Armour Square
neighborhoods meet up.
Which,
by the way, is the spot where Guaranteed Rate Field is located. Basically, I
have no doubt that White Sox fandom would be willing to buy into such products,
along with the bootleg “Cubs Suck!” products that one can stumble into.
ANYWAY,
THE U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s appeal board ruled this week in favor of
the Cubs, who challenged the right of the Iowan to use the phrase – which is
something they find offensive in that it implies White Sox fandom is totally
legitimate in regarding the existence of the Cubs as the equivalent of a boil
on baseball’s tushy.
Seriously,
the appeal board ruled that the Cubs have “convincing evidence” that they have
a public image that could be tainted by such negative statements.
It
also pointed out references in assorted news reports, Twitter comments and even
Yelp – where the Reuters wire service reported that people writing personal
reviews of the neighborhood surrounding Wrigley Field about having to avoid
“Cubnoxious drunkards” who taint Lake View with their presence at Cubs ball
games.
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| Only the Cubnoxious find this humorous |
Basically,
the Iowa man lost out because his slur against Cubs fans isn’t even all that
original. Not enough for him to be able to make any money off of it.
IT
IS A bit humorous from a baseball standard that the Cubs felt the need to fight
off such a slur, and that they were forced to fight the notion that their fans
are a batch of buffoons who don’t really have much of a clue about what takes
place on the diamond.
Then
again, I also wonder what Judge Cynthia Lynch was thinking when she wrote her
legal opinion, saying, “given the similarity of the ball club’s strong marks to
applicant’s mark, and the overlap of their goods that move in some of the same
channels of trade to the same classes of consumers, we conclude that confusion
is likely.”
It
was probably something along the lines of, “I went to law school for this!” For
a legal mind had to ultimately decide that the Cubs themselves would not go
around calling themselves or their fans “Cubnoxious.”
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| Will have to settle for CubsSuckClub.com stuff |
What
next? Will we need a ruling saying that all those t-shirts depicting the Calvin
character (of the old Calvin and Hobbes cartoon) urinating on an Old English
script White Sox logo also are fake?
THEN
AGAIN, THAT cartoon kid seems to urinate just about everywhere and on anything
– all too similar to the way many Lake View residents rant about Cubs fans
using their front lawns or alleyways as a place to publicly piss.
Which,
if you think about it, is an act that, in and of itself, could be deemed
Cubnoxious.
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