WNBA’S HOPE FOR A ‘THE W’ TRADEMARK RIDES ON A THREE-LETTER WORD

“The league that boasts basketball stars like Caitlin Clark and A’ja Wilson can overcome objections to its “The W” trademark from two Major League Baseball teams thanks largely to the diversity of sports letter logos.

At the center of the fight is the Women’s National Basketball Association’s March 2025 registration of its “The W” trademark. The Chicago Cubs and the Washington Nationals, both of which have their own registered stylized “W” marks, argue that the WNBA’s addition of “The” is the only meaningful distinction between its requested word mark and theirs.

The WNBA’s answer is due in October at the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board, barring a settlement.

The case highlights sometimes-misunderstood nuances in trademark law that play into a crowded sports landscape. The hundreds of professional and college sports letter-logos narrows the scope of protection for most individual marks — though fans are accustomed to making fine distinctions in merchandise, legal professionals say.

An article like “the” usually barely factors in a likelihood of confusion analysis, and the WNBA’s “The W” application being for a plain-word mark implies it could use any font or style. But considering the limited content and narrow protection of other “W” marks, the “The” likely would prove distinctive enough to register in this instance.

“They’re trying to argue that you can’t tell from the WNBA’s application what the visual appearance is going to be,” IP professor Stacey Dogan of Boston University School of Law said of the Cubs’ and Nationals’ opposition. “There could be something to that, but it seems to be a bit of a stretch.”

Representatives for the teams and the league didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Nuanced Distinctions

If the WNBA used a “The W” in a font that resembled any of the Nats’ W logos or the block-text “W” the Cubs use to signify a win, the offended party could sue for infringement regardless of registration, said IP attorney Mark Sommers of Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner.

But otherwise, consumers are adept at understanding the context of different sports letters — the color, font, product, and other clues as to the referenced team.

The public discourse tends to fixate on the notion of a team or league trying to exclusively own a letter, Sommers said.

Nuanced distinctions in the scope of those registrations — like their substantial limits on the types of branded products, marketplaces, and contexts under which the mark owner could successfully block others’ use of a letter — often get lost in the process, he said.

“It’s hard to fathom as a member of the general public that somebody can actually have proprietary rights to a single letter. But that’s only part of the analysis,” Sommers said. “This is where attorneys spontaneously combust.”

Information take from: https://news.bloomberglaw.com/ip-law/wnbas-hope-for-a-the-w-trademark-rides-on-a-three-letter-word