The Washington Redskins are gone, alive only in the hearts and memories of those who grew up rooting for them. Oh, they’re also very much alive and still making money at the team store.
According to Eric Flack of WUSA, the Commanders are selling Redskins team gear – name and logo – at the team store.
Despite the sell-off of Redskins gear, the Commanders maintain that the team’s former name and logo are not coming back. Instead, they insist that the limited sale is due to their desire to preserve their trademark rights.
“We are required to maintain the marks in commercial usage so that marks remain under franchise control,” a club spokesman told WUSA.
Under trademark law, specifically the Lanham Act, a trademark is considered abandoned if it is not in use for three consecutive years.
As OutKick’s Armando Salguero reports, “The statutory standard also requires ‘bona fide use … in the ordinary course of trade,’ rather than merely token sales made solely to reserve rights.”
Which begs the question: Does the Commanders’ limited-time sale of Art Monk T-shirts with the Redskins name and logo constitute something more than a “token” sale?
It would seem that limited-time use of the trademark would be the very definition of a token sale.
But it also raises another question: Why fight to hold on to a trademark if you have no intention of returning to it? Granted, every team seeks to retain trademarks and prevent their misuse. However, if the Commanders are legally required to make at least somewhat prominent use of the logo to retain it, that would negate the team’s rationale for getting rid of the name in the first place.
The name was jettisoned, ostensibly, because it was overly offensive to Native Americans. Then how can the team justify displaying it and making money off of it?
And if the team is mandated to do more than “token” use of the trademark to keep it, that would require them to display and use the trademark at a more highly visible level. And if that’s the case, why not just bring it back?
Either way, one of two paths forward seems clear: the team releases the trademark rights to the family of Chief Two Guns White Calf, the man depicted in the original logo. Or they bring back the Redskins, complete with the logo, as the chief’s family wants.
Nothing else seems plausible.