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USPTO Rejects Utah NHL Franchise’s ‘Yetis’ Trademark Over Clash With Cooler Brand

The still-unnamed franchise wanted to use “Yetis” as its moniker, but trademark officials rejected the plan.

Key Takeaways

Trademark Rejection: Utah Hockey Club’s attempt to brand as the “Utah Yetis” was rejected by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office due to potential confusion with the YETI brand, a well-known manufacturer of drinkware and coolers.


YETI’s Brand Protection: YETI has a history of aggressively protecting its brand, having previously sued multiple companies over trademark infringements.


Potential Co-Branding: There is a possibility for the Utah Hockey Club to negotiate a co-branding agreement with YETI, similar to the Seattle Kraken’s partnership with Kraken Rum. This could allow the team to use the “Yeti” name without legal issues.

The Phoenix Coyotes NHL franchise might’ve found its new home in Salt Lake City, but the quest for a new team name continues after the club unsuccessfully tried to file a trademark for the “Utah Yetis.”

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) ruled that the name would create confusion over the brand YETI, one of the most popular manufacturers of drinkware, coolers and bags. YETI products are strong sellers in the promotional products space, as well as at retail.

According to the Salt Lake Tribune, the USPTO rejected the team’s application on the grounds the “Yetis” name would cause a “likelihood of confusion” with other registered marks. The USPTO found that even putting “Utah” in front “is merely descriptive of or generic for applicant’s goods,” and wouldn’t diminish the potential confusion with other companies, as the word “Yeti” is the “more dominant element” of the mark.

Trademark disputes in the sports world are common, but they often involve a team crying foul when a merchandise seller uses a protected design or phrase. In this case, it’s a major professional sports team hitting a roadblock in its branding pursuit due to a private company’s brand.

While it appears YETI has not weighed in on this particular case, the brand has historically been quite protective of its intellectual property.

In 2016, YETI sued Walmart over selling drinkware that looked too similar to its can coolers. Then in 2017, it sued two more companies for selling products that it felt infringed on its designs. Only a month later, YETI brought Home Depot and Takeya to court over drinkware that looked like the YETI Rambler tumblers.

In October of 2017, YETI sued Alibaba on the grounds that it was selling knock-off products on the Chinese e-commerce platform. The legal battles continued in 2018, with YETI suing Walmart again, alleging that the big-box retailer didn’t sufficiently handle the situation two years prior.

What YETI thinks of Utah Hockey Club’s proposed name wasn’t clear as of this writing. The Utah team simply received the “no” from the USPTO, which preemptively put the kibosh on the trademark on the grounds that it could create confusion.

There’s the possibility of the franchise striking some sort of a deal with YETI where the club could use the name for the team without attracting the ire of the cooler company. It would require the two entities to file a joint document with the USPTO saying that there’s no objection and that they can each own separate trademarks that include the word “Yeti.”

“It might involve just agreeing that YETI coolers does not care if the Utah Yetis exist,” Jonas Anderson, a professor of patent law, intellectual property, trade secrets, civil procedure and property at the University of Utah in Park City, told the Salt Lake Tribune. “Or they could enter it like a collaborative agreement where YETI coolers is the official cooler company of the Utah Yetis. Kind of co-branding going on.”

There’s precedent to this, it turns out. After the NHL awarded Seattle an expansion team, which eventually became the Seattle Kraken, the franchise partnered with Kraken Black Spiced Rum on an official partnership.

Kraken Rum created multiple branded experiences and giveaways at Seattle’s Climate Pledge Arena upon its opening.

A co-branding initiative between Utah Hockey Club and YETI could be interesting. It’s not uncommon for sports teams elsewhere in the world to take the name of a company or sponsor – namely teams in Japanese and Korean baseball leagues like the Doosan Bears in Korea or the Tokyo Yakult Swallows in Japan.

Still, given how protective YETI is with its name and intellectual property, it might just be best for the team to look elsewhere in the mountains for inspiration.

Should some sort of co-branding agreement be reached, it would be fascinating to see how YETI products are integrated into the branding identity of the hypothetical Utah Yetis, and how it would pave the way for future corporate co-branding in sports.