INTA 2015: Mayweather, Pacquiao and … trademarks
Floyd Mayweather Jr and Manny Pacquiao traded blows last night in one of the most high-profile boxing matches of all time, but the fight itself also provided an interest from a trademark viewpoint.
WIPR’s team each paid $40 to watch the showdown from a bar in San Diego, where the annual conference of the International Trademark Association is being held, and had its trademark hat on throughout the event.
Mayweather beat Pacquiao at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, meaning he is unbeaten in 48 fights.
Before the two met, the BBC reported that Mayweather was due to earn around $150 million in total, while Pacquiao was set to receive $100 million.
And Pacquiao, who hails from the Philippines, was reportedly planning on donating half of his earnings to charity.
However, despite his nickname of “Money”, Mayweather does have a US trademark for ‘Floyd Mayweather Jr Foundation’, registered in 2011.
He applied for the mark in 2010, citing services including “providing fund raising activities to support the funding of scholarships and/or financial assistance for summer camps, educational programmes, higher education and mentoring programmes”.
For one event, called the “Back to school giveaway 2014” in Las Vegas, the foundation and Mayweather Promotions teamed up to offer prizes and giveaways to school children, as well as provide them with entertainment.
In fact, the trademark is one of many that Mayweather owns. According to US lawyer Erik Pelton, who writes a blog on the website of his law firm Erik M Pelton & Associates, Mayweather has more than 100 US trademark applications and registrations. However, Pacquiao, he says, owns none.
On Twitter, though, US trademark attorney Roberto Ledesma pointed out before the fight that Pacquiao relinquished an application for ‘Manny Pacquiao’ after not paying a $50 fee.
The mark was applied for in 2009, but according to the US Patent and Trademark Office it was abandoned in 2010 because the applicant “failed to respond or filed a late response to an office action”.
On his blog, Pelton added that some of Mayweather’s trademarks on show last night included ‘Cents equals dollars’ (covering hats and caps), ‘The money team’ (for goods including apparel) and ‘Hard work and dedication’ (covering t-shirts and tank tops).
Other trademarks related to last night’s event, Pelton noted, are ‘MGM Grand’, ‘Freddie Roach’ (Pacquiao’s trainer) and ‘Let’s ready to rumble’. That last trademark, which protects the famous phrase uttered by boxing announcers before a fight, was applied for in 1999 by a company of the same name.
With their combined $250 million, the fighters could now afford to file around 770,000 US trademarks. Now that’s a lot of trademarks.
