Perhaps a Hard Lesson Learned for Bubba Watson…. Steve & Barry’s® Files for Bankruptcy
Remember a post I did for the Cele-Branding blog back in November regarding Bubba Watson’s deal with Steve & Barry’s®? No worries, let me recap...... The following comes from the original post:
How would you like it if the federal trademark application for your line of golf products (which includes your name) and the URL that is your name (www.BubbaWatson.com) were both assets of a company in bankruptcy? I can’t even imagine the hassle that would be involved if Bubba wanted to obtain the rights to this intellectual property at this point.
In fact, just consider this article highlighting the fact that the bankruptcy judge had to approve Steve & Barry's payment of $250,000 to tennis star Venus Williams under the terms of her clothing line contract. Apparently the payment was approved “provided she makes certain assurances.” I don’t know what these “certain assurances” are, but I sure would not be the agent of a superstar athlete having to explain that a $250k payment is late from a company in bankruptcy and that the athlete has to “make certain assurances” to get paid!
I hope Bubba finds a way to walk away from this with the BubbaGolf trademark and his URL, but I wouldn’t bet on it!
David Dawsey – The I.P. Golf Guy
Bubba has teamed up with 200+ store national chain Steve & Barry’s® to introduce a BubbaGolf™ collection of high-quality, low-priced golf and casual apparel. The collection will include golf pants and shorts, polo shirts, hats, visors, and windjackets; all of which will be priced at $14.98 or less.
Now, since this is a blog dedicated to legal aspects of celebrity branding… let’s take a look at what has been done to protect the trademark.
A trademark application has been filed for the BUBBAGOLF mark in two international classes; namely, international class 018 for “all-purpose sport bags, backpacks, handbags, duffel bags, shoulder bags, and wallets not of precious metal,” and international class 025 for “beachwear, belts made of leather, belts made of textile, coats, footwear excluding orthopedic footwear, jackets, jeans, headwear, sweaters, sweatshirts, pants, shorts, shirts, windshirts, tracksuits, and undergarments.”
Interestingly, the application lists the owner of the mark as 4004 Incorporated. Surely, that must be a company owned by Bubba, right? Wrong, 4004 Incorporated is the parent company of Steve & Barry’s. This piqued my interest, so I decided to check out Bubba’s website. The website is nice, but oddly includes a copyright notice listing Steve & Barry’s. Odd, right? Well, it only gets more interesting. The URL was registered in the name of a person with a Steve & Barry’s email address. I hope someone is advising Bubba on these issues and these seemly odd occurrences are part of a larger strategic master plan, but I doubt it. Shouldn’t a celebrity athlete own the trademarks and domain names containing their name?
Who do you think owns Tiger’s trademarks and URLs… a company owned by Tiger or Nike?
So, why am I revisiting this topic? Well, last month Steve & Barry’s announced that they filed for protection under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code (click here for the press release). Now, since this is a blog dedicated to legal aspects of celebrity branding… let’s take a look at what has been done to protect the trademark.
A trademark application has been filed for the BUBBAGOLF mark in two international classes; namely, international class 018 for “all-purpose sport bags, backpacks, handbags, duffel bags, shoulder bags, and wallets not of precious metal,” and international class 025 for “beachwear, belts made of leather, belts made of textile, coats, footwear excluding orthopedic footwear, jackets, jeans, headwear, sweaters, sweatshirts, pants, shorts, shirts, windshirts, tracksuits, and undergarments.”
Interestingly, the application lists the owner of the mark as 4004 Incorporated. Surely, that must be a company owned by Bubba, right? Wrong, 4004 Incorporated is the parent company of Steve & Barry’s. This piqued my interest, so I decided to check out Bubba’s website. The website is nice, but oddly includes a copyright notice listing Steve & Barry’s. Odd, right? Well, it only gets more interesting. The URL was registered in the name of a person with a Steve & Barry’s email address. I hope someone is advising Bubba on these issues and these seemly odd occurrences are part of a larger strategic master plan, but I doubt it. Shouldn’t a celebrity athlete own the trademarks and domain names containing their name?
Who do you think owns Tiger’s trademarks and URLs… a company owned by Tiger or Nike?
How would you like it if the federal trademark application for your line of golf products (which includes your name) and the URL that is your name (www.BubbaWatson.com) were both assets of a company in bankruptcy? I can’t even imagine the hassle that would be involved if Bubba wanted to obtain the rights to this intellectual property at this point.
In fact, just consider this article highlighting the fact that the bankruptcy judge had to approve Steve & Barry's payment of $250,000 to tennis star Venus Williams under the terms of her clothing line contract. Apparently the payment was approved “provided she makes certain assurances.” I don’t know what these “certain assurances” are, but I sure would not be the agent of a superstar athlete having to explain that a $250k payment is late from a company in bankruptcy and that the athlete has to “make certain assurances” to get paid!
I hope Bubba finds a way to walk away from this with the BubbaGolf trademark and his URL, but I wouldn’t bet on it!
David Dawsey – The I.P. Golf Guy
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