The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has refused four trademark applications filed by North Carolina football coach Bill Belichick and his companion, Jordon Hudson, saying the phrases they attempted to trademark would cause a "likelihood of confusion" with previously filed ones.
The New England Patriots, Belichick's former employer, hold the rights on the trademarks Belichick and Hudson sought. In April, TCE Rights Management, with Hudson listed as its manager, filed to secure several trademarks, including these four: "Do Your Job (Bill's Version)," "Ignore the Noise (Bill's Version)," "The Belestrator (Bill's Version)" and "No Days Off (Bill's Version)."
The Patriots trademarked "The Belestrator" in 2009, "Do Your Job" in 2013 and both "No Days Off" and "Ignore the Noise" in 2017.
The patent office released the decisions last week, saying it rejected the requests because "it is likely consumers would be confused, mistaken or deceived as to the commercial source of the goods and/or services of the parties."
"It was very obvious that the USPTO would refuse these applications from the start," said trademark attorney Josh Gerben of the firm Gerben IP. "They're too similar. Like, I can't say I'm going to make 'Nike shoes (Josh's version).' Once somebody has a trademark registered on a name or a phrase, you're not able to just simply add something to it and get it registered."
TCE Rights Management said in its application that it sought the trademarks for clothing, audio and video streaming material, books and the production of media including films, podcasts and DVDs.
The Patriots, UNC and the attorney listed for TEC did not respond to ESPN requests for comment. Gerben said that, typically, the current owner of a trademark -- in this case the Patriots -- would not be informed of a refusal or a potentially competing application. Only the party making the trademark request would be made aware of the application's status. The patent office gave TCE three months to appeal the ruling.
"The only real logical next legal step," said Gerben, would be to challenge whether the Patriots had still been using the trademarks or whether Belichick had ownership of the trademarks in his contract. "We don't know what the contract says." Other trademarks filed by TCE in April -- including "Chapel Bill (Bill's Version)," "The Belichick Way" and "The All-Belichick Team" -- had no conflicting marks, according to patent office documents.