The United States Patent and Trademark Office has refused Major League Baseball’s attempt to register “Play Ball” as a trademark for clothing, blocking the league from claiming exclusive apparel rights over one of the oldest phrases in American sports.
According to an ESPN report, the USPTO issued a final action Friday denying the application. The agency said the phrase does not do the work trademark law requires: identifying the source of goods.
“In this case, the applied-for mark is a commonplace term, message, or expression widely used by a variety of sources that merely conveys an ordinary, familiar, well-recognized concept or sentiment,” the USPTO wrote in its filing, according to ESPN. The office also said phrases that convey only an informational message cannot be registered.
That is the plain mechanics of trademark law, stripped of league branding fog. A trademark is supposed to tell buyers where a product comes from. A phrase shouted at the start of a baseball game, used across sports, and also used in everyday speech to mean cooperation or getting started, has a harder time serving that function on a shirt.
The decision does not mean nobody can ever register “Play Ball” for anything. Trademark rights depend heavily on the goods and services listed in an application. Attorney Josh Gerben told ESPN that other entities have registrations involving the phrase, including a food company using it for bubble gum, a minerals company using it for playground surfacing, and “The Play Ball” for a fundraiser tied to the Strong National Museum of Play in Rochester, New York.
Gerben said the clothing context appears to have sunk MLB’s application. “In this case they are saying that the phrase has become so ubiquitous and it has this underlying meaning,” Gerben told ESPN. “For a clothing brand, the government doesn’t think it’s unique enough to be registered.”
The filing also fits a broader pattern of MLB pushing hard at the edges of trademark law. The league has previously opposed a Brooklyn burger restaurant’s trademark on behalf of the Dodgers, decades after the team left Brooklyn. It has challenged a local Little League’s use of MLB team names without team logos. It also tried to register the names of three cities where MLB teams play, then backed away after legal academics criticized the applications. In another dispute, MLB opposed a finance company’s mark by arguing that two different teams had rights in the letter “W.”
Those earlier fights show why broad registrations matter. A successful registration for “Play Ball” on clothing could have given MLB another legal lever against apparel sellers using ordinary sports language. The USPTO’s refusal keeps the phrase where the agency says it belongs in this category: in common use, not fenced off as a league-controlled clothing mark.
This story draws on original reporting from Techdirt.
