... most likely going to be Inter Toronto FC. An application for the trademark on that name was filed with the Canadian Intellectual Property Office on March 16, 2006 by Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP on behalf of Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment. The name was also registered with the United States Patent and Trademark Office on March 28, 2006 by Alan Blum on behalf of Major League Soccer. Additionally, applications for the names Toronto FC and Toronto Northmen were filed with the CIPO, but they don't appear to have been registered with the USPTO.
Glad to see it's not only US MLS teams who select sorry knock-off names. I expected more from them. They couldn't even do "International Toronto FC", which would at least make more sense and is the translation of the actual name of Inter Milan.
http://www.cipo.gc.ca http://www.uspto.gov Simply conduct a trademark search for the aforementioned names on both sites.
Their nickname should be "The Sandman". That way they could be the "Inter Sandman" Ok, sorry, that was lame. Anyway, much like the question of whether the 'FC' in 'FC Dallas' meant anything, I'm wondering if the official name is "International Toronto Football Club"
It doesn't appear to be - at least not by legal standards with regard to trademark law. The only version of the name registered with either the CIPO or USPTO is Inter Toronto FC. In other words, Football Club wasn't legally registered as part of the name. Just the letters FC were registered as part of the name.
Though this has been one of the best opening weekends in MLS history but I do feel that MLS is making a farce of itself with these names. FC Dallas is fine, RSL is a joke, Dynamo is ok, but if they really want Inter Toronto they should at least go with Internazionale or International, not just "Inter".
Not only is the name a rip-off it doesn't even sound good. You want a team's name to roll of the tongue. Inter Toronto FC SOUNDS like crap too. Toronto Internationals at least sounds better and its a reworked version of a soccer term people are familiar with. I think Toronto Athletic F.C. sounds good (sort of a rip-off but better than Atletico Toronto which sounds good but doesn't make sense for a Canadian team)
Toronto heads need to flood MLSE's e-mail address' and let them know that this name is simply not good enough.
If they just called themselves Toronto FC, Toronto SC (Toronto Soccer Club), or even Toronto Athletic, that would have been a decent name. I agree that Inter Toronto sounds like a wanna-be Inter Milan, in the same way that Real Salt Lake sounds like a wanna-be Spanish team (Real Madrid, Real Betis etc...).