LAFC

In my attempt to scoop the Columbus Crew SC logo before it was unveiled I spent a fair amount of time in the database of the US Patent & Trademark Office. The filings are publicly available and fairly easy to search.

I came up empty handed in searching for the new Crew logo. However, I learned a few things about Major League Soccer in the process. For one, they hold the trademarks for most, if not all, the logos in the league. I presume this is because of the 1 entity system.

However, sometimes trademarks will filed by investor groups before they were transferred to MLS. There are two Los Angles related trademarks that were filed this way. These are the following images:

During the LAFC presser by MLS I noticed @wrongsideofpond retweeted an image from @fltrotta. They had stumbled across the first image above.

I remembered seeing these filings when searching the database for Major League Soccer owned trademarks. I did not think much of them at the time since I was focused on the Crew. However, they may be relevant given the LAFC announcement.

It seems that CHIVAS GUADALAJARA LICENSING LLC originally filed for both on January 17. 2014 and transferred them to Major League Soccer on February 26, 2014. The relevant filings can be seen here and here.

I have no idea what this means in regards to LAFC. If the new investor/operator group wants to use the LAFC logo above MLS already has the trademark. However, they could just sit on them and use a different logo.

I told ya

As you no doubt know by now, the Crew hosted a rebrand event last night. There the club revealed a new badge and name change. As I predicted in my previous post, the Crew is now "Columbus Crew SC". You can get all the details on the club's website.

There remains something interesting of note. Crew SC has not activated the domains (columbuscrewsc.com, columbuscrewsc.org, columbuscrewsc.us) they purchased back in July. They remained parked by GoDaddy.com. I presume they are holding onto them until brand is in full swing after the end of the season.