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UFC’s legal battle continues
By Zach Arnold | January 26, 2006
By Zach Arnold
So much for discussion of a settlement between UFC & WFC. UFC released a press statement on Wednesday stating the following:
Zuffa, LLC, owner of the Ultimate Fighting Championship® brand, announced today that it secured a key legal victory in its trademark infringement lawsuit against the Worldwide Fighting Championship and Gino Carlucci. Zuffa filed the complaint in Phoenix on January 10, 2006 to protect its intellectual property rights. Zuffa’s principal allegations were that Worldwide Fighting Championship (1) was using an octagon fighting enclosure at its mixed martial arts events without a license from Zuffa and incorporating an octagonal design as part of its logo, (2) was impermissibly displaying the term “Ultimate Fighting†in advertisements on its website and (3) was using a “WFC†logo that was confusingly similar to Zuffa’s stylized UFC logo.
Other news/rumors: Could the Ultimate Fighting Championship be trying to book Joe Stevenson vs. Jens Pulver?
Topics: All Topics, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 2 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Interesting situation. From what I understand, in California, mma must be held in a cage. I haven’t read the actual rules regarding cage construction, though its spelled out with the NSAC so I would expect California to do the same. Since the UFC was in the ear of the Cali contingent, its designed to be favorable to UFC product. Legally, I would expect there to be a case for others to fight–if the rules say you have to use an octagonal cage, then that would hardly allow for UFC to tell you that you cannot use it. Seems a conflict of interest type situation or a SNAFU. If UFC has trademarked “octagon” then competitors might simply call it “the cage”. I never did like the legal system allowing someone to trademark simple words common to language useage. UFC hardly invented the words “octagon, ultimate, fighting, etc…” If they want to create a new language fo shizzle, then trademark the hell out of it–I have no problem, but not for words long in existance. Its too bad that years ago someone didn’t win a verdict against McMahon for trying to have exclusive useage of words like “superstars” and then perhaps we wouldn’t have Dana following in Vince’s legally repulsive footsteps.
In the above article, UFC basically says they didn’t grant a license for useage of the cage. If they win, this creates a legally troubling situation in California. Consider–the Cali rules say you must use a cage and a court says you have to pay UFC a rights/licensing fee to do so. That smacks of monetary collusion between the California reglulatory commission and the UFC. Hopefully, this will play out in a legal judgement and the UFC doesn’t win via threat of lawsuit by outspending the competition on lawyers. Someone needs to smack this down or its only going to ge worse.
In reading over the regs at the California State Athletic Commissions website, they don’t specify the shape of a cage–in fact they refer to it as a ring–but that it must be enclosed in material such as plastic coated chain link to keep fighters from falling out. Min 18’x18′ and max of 32’x32′. Thus you could have a ring with cage walls, a circle or any other shape without risking Danas wraith over the octagon.