2012 World Series PANDABALL + 1996 SHOW ME THE MONEY = Trademark Wildcards.

"Pablo Sandoval San Francisco Giants" by Dirk DBQ is licensed under CC BY 2.0. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/?ref=openverse.

Good Morning, ever wake up at 3:30am with a great idea? Ever have one of your favorite players hit 3 home runs in Game 1 of the 2012 World Series? Ever been in a movie theater and realized when what would be an iconic catchphrase, (to this day), was first uttered?

Trademark WILDCARDS!

Real businesses are methodically business planned out to the nth degrees, including clearing names, logos and slogans. Then securing the resulting trademarks.

Wildcard ideas are like half awake “shots in the dark” or maybe better put “punches at the business universe of success”. Most miss the mark. Some are near misses. Once or twice a home run.

In 1996, Haig Fisher, (who happens to also be a long known friendly competitor who founded Trademark Etc. a year later in 1998, see https://www.linkedin.com/in/haig-fisher-b159153/), was with his girlfriend watching the Jerry Maguire movie when the theme of the movie, “SHOW ME THE MONEY”, was demanded by Cuba Gooding Jr.’s character, Rod Tidwell, to Tom Cruise’s character, Jerry Maguire, urging him to prove his value as an agent to negotiate a new free agent contract.

Haig went home and trademarked the name. Maybe the slogan suggested a trademark, because as Haig tells it he was the first to file SHOW ME THE MONEY for clothing, beating 29 other people who tried the same thing – even beating TriStar Pictures who put out the movie. See Haig’s trademark here: https://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=75221250&caseSearchType=US_APPLICATION&caseType=DEFAULT&searchType=statusSearch.

Watch the clip here: https://www.google.com/search?q=show+me+the+money+movie&oq=show+me+the+money+movie&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOdIBCDYyMjlqMGo3qAIAsAIA&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#fpstate=ive&vhid=1n1jCH78qU5jxM&vld=cid:25eeb1f1,vid:IpwSXWq1wwU,st:0&vssid=l.

TriStar Pictures negotiated the purchase of the trademark from Haig for a tidy sum, enough for a down payment for a new house in Santa Barbara, California.

Then there’s the story of the PANDABALL trademark. See my trademark here: https://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=85762936&caseSearchType=US_APPLICATION&caseType=DEFAULT&searchType=statusSearch.

When Pablo Sandoval of the San Francisco Giants opened Game 1 of the World Series October 24, 2012 vs the Detroit Tiger’s with 3 straight home runs, then a single. Also known as the PANDA, Pablo was one of my favorite baseball players. I had first seen Pablo saunter across the field in San Jose, before a single A game. I thought he was a coach or aged hanger on, but then he started the game and hit and hit and hit. The guy could hit!

“Pablo Sandoval San Francisco Giants” by Dirk DBQ is licensed under CC BY 2.0 .

I remember that night very well because I had just round-tripped 900 miles to San Diego that day helping a friend move to San Diego to make that game which was Springer Elementary trip to the game, where my 3 kids attended school. Probably why I noticed Pablo. I was as exhausted as he looked. Except he wasn’t. Pablo was onto the major leagues to make history as the only player in major league history to homer in his first 3 World Series at bats. Go Pablo!

As for PANDABALL, being the harried Dad that I was, but also the diligent founder of TradeMark Express, from home I jumped onto our Dialog databases and quickly did a comprehensive clearance legal search (fast when you don’t have to write a report and the name proves to be clear), then filed the trademark.

Yes, the USPTO published for opposition the trademark PANDABALL for clothing.

But then the opposition quickly came from Major League Baseball.

It didn’t end well for me.

Luckily, I already owned 10 houses.

From the halfhearted losing argument that PANDABALL could be about real PANDAS, to I could somehow outlast MLB’s pocketbook, to trying to get a mere $50,000, to $20,000 to $10,000 to $5,000 to $3,000, I was left with a “Hail Mary” pass. “I’ll give you the trademark for a meeting with Pablo Sandoval, to thank him for his great play and say what a fan I was”.

Maybe MLB did a deep dive into all the times as a kid I was thrown out of Dodger Stadium with my friends trying to sneak from General Admission to the vastly better Field Level seats, or the time I was caught trying to crawl unnoticed to Willie McCovey’s 400th home run in the closed section of right field seats at Candlestick Park or the time I out negotiated the San Diego Padres for a Film Express Camera Day promotion in 1983 from including $5,000 for the San Diego Chicken too or the time I was caught with scalper tickets that had already been scanned, with my 5 year old daughter at the game 1 Giants vs Angels World Series, when I called the guy a “jerk” after he insisted “fire marshal laws prohibited them selling 2 more tickets to the game. BULLSHIT.

Maybe football and baseball metaphors are unsportsmanlike to mix.

MLB told me I was OUT.

In any case I am not sure when as a company we realized litigious companies are factors too when considering if any given name, logo or slogan CAN be trademarked. We have always watched famous names to protect our clients. There are about 4000 famous names in the USA. More than you think. Today this is always something we look for.

I certainly didn’t consider MLB’s reach / overreach that night in my zeal to trademark.

I did beat 1 other guy who tried to trademark the same name PANDABALL the next day.

It wasn’t Haig.

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Thank you,

Chris DeMassa, Founder – 650-948-0530

Email: staff@tmexpress.com

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