Charm City is a crappy nickname that was made up in a focus group by a PR firm.

Here we go again

Man they should have a sit-down with Denise Whiting about how this is probably going to go.

I like it and you’re a bit off.

https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-xpm-1995-07-18-1995199190-story.html

Willie Don convened ad execs and creative directors and asked them to come up with something to promote the city. It wasn’t focus grouped but they put these ads out there.

Very slightly.

I kinda like it, atleast compared to most city slogans.

Merging a couple posts together. Here is the article by the Brew about this:

https://www.thebaltimorebanner.com/community/local-news/us-patent-and-trademark-office-offers-initial-rejection-of-baltimore-ravens-attempt-to-trademark-charm-city-OQ6QPAAT4VAOXIQNRU2XGNUGCA/

Jesus Christ how can an entire organization of professionals be so fucking stupid. This will be a PR nightmare.

That might be a problem with the several local companies that have “charm city” in their name

“Word mark,” good luck.

Bad idea hon.

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My comment has nothing to do with legalities and what they may get the rights to do. It has to do with how quickly the public can turn on you if you try to co-opt and take control of something that is essentially a public term of endearment. Whiting successfully got the trademark to “Hon,” but it didn’t stop everyone from hating her.

The Baltimore Romans have bigger problems and don’t need this headache

Genuine Question - do the Ravens have a history of enforcing their trademarks locally? Because I feel like I’ve seen more than a few businesses with infringing names and trade dress, and I’ve never heard of any sort of takedown action by the team.

On the other hand, if the NFL decided to do a City Jersey promotion, like what the NBA does, they would insist that the Ravens have secured the permission or rights first. Because people will squat on trademarks to get a payout from an NFL team.

I’m just saying, as stewards of the trademark, there are many worse options than the Ravens.

Read my mind.

I am sorry, this utopian view is divorced from how things actually get done in the world. Essentially, one of the things that most IP lawyers will tell you (if you own a TM) is that you need to "police" your trademark to ensure it remains yours... effectively, you need to send and document cease and desist letters to anyone who infringes on your TM (and sue those who ignore it).

Unlike Denise, whose cafe had terrible food, nobody will care because they don't want to piss off a football team and have them leave again.

And my question is…have the ravens done that? There’s a ravens electrical, bad birds everything, half the businesses use ravens colors as part of their trade dress…but I haven’t heard of the Ravens sending out cease and desist letters. Has anyone been stopped by the team for infringement? Everyone is bringing up the ‘Hon’ thing, but my recollection was that that business had been involved in multiple litigations before that application.

Also, the application seems pretty explicitly focused on football-oriented gear. Even if the items themselves are not football in nature, the application only applies to items used to promote a football team. So is there a Charm City semi-pro team that would be put out by this, or a business putting out faux Ravens gear using Charm City that they are targeting? I just don’t see this as a broad attack on the city’s identity.

I don't know, man. Unlike "THE" Ohio State University, it's not like the Ravens were even the originators of the term. It's a nickname coined at least a hundred years ago if I'm not mistaken, and they're just trying to co-opt it as a trademark despite its use in the public domain for a long time.

I don't think they get granted this. There are already so many other businesses that could have a claim to this trademark before the Ravens.

IANAL but I watch wrestling and people trademark a lot of things there. For example, Chris Jericho this year trademarked “The Ocho.”

Now you may be thinking, “Wait, surely ESPN has a trademark on that, right?”

Here’s the thing: Jericho trademarked it within the context of pro wrestling. Look at the trademark documents for “Charm City” and you’ll see similar qualifiers about it being in relation to football.

Essentially, they were looking to cease people from making purple “Charm City football” shirts which make profits while trying to circumvent the Ravens name. This wouldn’t give them the right to send a cease-and-desist to say Charm City Cakes or Charm City Meadworks. However, note that they got rejected because it was just “geographically descriptive” - essentially, the Patent Office said you can’t trademark a place’s name or existing nickname.

I am certain they try keep most legal activity VERY quiet... You would almost never hear about a cease & desist letters. I don't know anywhere you could search for it.

I don't know where to look for trademark lawsuits and I am not in the mood to search through all the lawsuits that the Ravens have been involved in (I am sure almost all of them have nothing to do with any IP stuff).

But here's a list of Trademark applications that the Ravens have opposed/disputed (if you read it over a number of the oppositions were rejected by the US Trademark office... ie: example 1, example 2). This strongly suggests that in some of the legal filings are of the legal "asshole" nature.

However, the idea that we should rely on billion dollar corporations to be stewards of shared cultural "artifacts" really confuses me... and honestly just exposes how the intellectual property legal world is so deeply misaligned with the way I think things should work.

Pretty limited application/scope of use. Doesn’t strike me as a big deal.

I could see getting in a battle with duff of charm city cakes

Don’t you love it when people ignore the point and argue over the not important part? How dare you say it was a focus group!

The real issue is "charm city" is a defacto geographic location and by itself cannot be trademarked. There are a few other trademarks that contain "charm city". For example "Charm City Meadworks" is a valid trademark.

That’s not very charming of them.

NOH!

Someone should ask Denise Whiting how this story ends.

Ravens are usually pretty savvy about PR too.

I mean I have no doubt that they would be able navigate any bad PR way better than Denise “Hon” Whiting, but still it may leave a bad taste in a lot of locals’ mouths. Perhaps they will be more hands off with locals using the branding and it won’t really change a thing.

This.

“In a statement to The Banner, the Ravens said that "the intent of this trademark filing is not to prevent anyone from the general use of 'Charm City.' We understand that 'Charm City' is a commonly utilized moniker by many entities, and we fully respect that."

"Our trademark filing is specific to anything in connection with, or relating to, Baltimore Ravens professional football. This includes team marketing campaigns — such as 'Charm City Football,' which is used to represent the history of football in Baltimore — slogans, merchandise and promotional items," the team added.”

The team is only attempting to protect Charm City when it’s used in connection to Baltimore Ravens Football. This is a preventative measure because allegedly some person in the past trademarked a slogan that the team was using before they could and then tried to force the team to buy it from them.

It was turned down

I just saw the OP and dropped by to say the same thing. We did it once, we can do it again.