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Chicago Cubs cleared to use their logo in Japan |
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Written by Felix Da Silva (fdasilva@bitnip.com)
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Thursday, 09 August 2007 |
 The Chicago Cubs has been cleared to use its trademark logo in Japan after the Intellectual Property High Court ruled that it would not be confused with that of Swiss financial group UBS AG.
As reported in Asahi , even though the Swiss group did not object to the team's move to register the trademark, Japan's Patent Office ruled last September that it could not register the trademark because the logo "was not familiar in Japan," and so could be read as UBS.
Representatives of the American Major League Baseball team filed a suit in February at the high court, demanding revocation.
On Wednesday, the high court overruled the patent office's decision, stating the team is well known in Japan because the popular power hitter, Sammy Sosa, was on the team. Another reason was that the team belongs to the National League Central Division to which Japanese player So Taguchi's team, the St. Louis Cardinals, also belongs.
In baseball lingo, the Patent Office's home run was ruled a foul ball by the umpire. In the bottom of the ninth, MLB hit a home run to clinch the game. The final score -- MLB (1) : Patent Office (0).
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