Legal News

Mobile-Phone Programmer Wins Rights to ?March Madness?

By Dan Slater

All kinds of new things are happening in college hoops. The three-point line is getting moved back to 20 feet 9 inches, all four number one seeds made it to the Final Four for the first time in history, and a non-NCAA affiliate has won the right to use March Madness in its programming. (Here’s a post from way back on Friday on the NCAA’s success in defending its trademark.)

The Law Blog just got word from Intersport, a sports and entertainment programmer that produces college basketball for CBS and ESPN, that an Illinois appellate court has affirmed the company’s rights to use the term “March Madness” in connection with its original made-for-mobile programming. Here’s the opinion.

According to the press release, years ago Intersport assigned its trademark on the phrase “March Madness” to the Illinois High School Association in exchange for a royalty stream. Two years ago, in response to threats from the NCAA, Intersport filed suit in the Circuit Court of Cook County, seeking a declaratory judgment to affirm its rights in relation to the March Madness trademark. Intersport had wanted to use the term through a deal with mobile-services provider Sprint. Following a year-long court battle, the Circuit Court ruled in favor of Intersport.

On appeal, the Appellate Court has now confirmed Intersport’s exclusive rights to distribute such programming to the public in any manner, including via mobile wireless devices.

We called Scott Kline of Andrews & Kurth in Dallas. In 2003, Kline represented the NCAA in a different “March Madness” infringement suit. A Texas district court ruled in favor of the NCAA and the Illinois High School Association in its suit against Netfire, a sports marketing group, holding that the term “March Madness” is not generic.

Kline told the Law Blog that the decision raises interesting issues about the nexus of sports programming and cell-phone technology: “There’s always been a fair amount of disagreement on the way that the Intersport license would coincide with the NCAA’s March Madness rights,” said Kline. “Intersport has a unique, exclusive license that applies to a specific range of [broadcasting] distribution rights.”

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on December 31, 1969 (boomark / email).