I noticed that NBC is rolling out a new drama titled Chicago Fire this summer season. Lots of promo tie ins could happen here to raise the profile of the club on a national level So hey FO maybe on the phone or work that email to see if you can make some connects and maybe have a scene or two or at a least a Fire jersey featured in a future episode shoot. Got to work all the angles so to speak.
I don't see this as a positive. To me it just causes more confusion over our name. It feels like we're finally getting to a point where people don't think I work for the Fire department (though this still occurs with irritating frequency). The last thing I need is people thinking I'm wearing my favorite shows t-shirt. Frankly, I'm surprised that this is even legal. Can you imagine a show called "The Pittsburgh Steelers" and it's about a family of steel workers?
The Club doesn't own the trademark on the phrase "Chicago Fire", given that they stole it themselves from the 1873 fire.
This is almost true. You can't "trademark any term" (but you can come pretty damn close). The words Chicago Fire, as words, probably cannot be trademarked (it would be impossible to prevent anyone else from using those two words together). However, you can trademark the words using particular fonts, or logos using the words, or other permutations of the phrase. There are (or were) 25 trademarks and service marks with "Chicago Fire" in the name. A few have been cancelled. As for the Chicago Fire being a trademark for the team, there are few. The Fire's logo is trademarked as the "C Chicago Fire" (with the C being the C in the middle of the logo). The logo with the Fire Truck has been canceled as of 2010. It was serial number 75382195. It appears that the team has about five current Chicago Fire trade marks. Here are their serial numbers: 75327475 75597688 75978564 77313327 75382194 75327475 Interestingly, Major League Soccer, LLC is listed as the owner, not the Fire or Hauptmann. Probably because the league technically "owns" almost everything connected to it and the team "owners" are really owner-operators. They are, most likely, members (or member-managers, depending on the structure of the LLC) and, as a result, they are permitted to operate the individual team. The intellectual property, it appears, is retained by the league. The former pointy ball team "The Chicago Fire" had two trademarks that were cancelled in 1981 and 1982. For more information, see: http://www.uspto.gov/trademarks/index.jsp