Anthem Sports & Entertainment were dealt with a bump in the road to trademark three Hardy-related terms that are the center of the fight between the two parties.
On April 28, Anthem filed for trademarks for Broken Matt, Brother Nero, and Vanguard1 with the United States Patent and Trademark Office, two months after Matt Hardy filed for his own trademark of Broken Matt Hardy.
Matt’s application was initially refused pending further clarification and Anthem and GFW were met with the same situation. A USPTO application search shows that yesterday, the USPTO notified Anthem about their preliminary examination of the trademarks.
For the Broken Matt and Brother Nero applications, the USPTO is asking Anthem to clarify whether the names in the marks identify a particular living individual. “In this case, the application neither specifies whether the name in the mark identifies a particular living individual nor includes a written consent,” the conclusion of the report states.
For Vanguard1, the USPTO points out that the mark is similar or almost identical to the Vanguard trademark that already exists. “As the marks of the parties are almost identical and share the dominant element and the goods and content of the parties are identical, there exists a likelihood of confusion as to the source of the goods and registration is refused.
Anthem has six months to respond and amend their trademark applications.
