Few units on the gridiron can shut down a game like the Seattle Seahawks defense. Off the field, Paul Allen's team has a squad twice as aggressive and even more suffocating than the Legion of Boom(TM): trademark lawyers. The franchise's legal team is manned up in the U.S. Patent Office and blanketing the Federal courts in an all-out effort to lay claim to the fan lexicon, including essential sports multipurpose words such as a "boom" and "Go Hawks."
The Seahawks want to trademark everything
The Seahawks are coming for your “12s” and your “Boom” and even “Go Hawks.”
Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images
Seahawk trademark lawyers are battle tested, having successfully arrived at a legal agreement with Texas A&M in 2006 allowing the NFL team to use the school’s “12th Man” trademark, albeit with a fairly rigorous set of guidelines. Since then, the team has laid claim to a variety of trademarks, including “The Legion of Boom,” the design of the “12” flag, “Bring on the 12,” the number “12” designed to resemble a cheering fan and “Blitz,” the name of their mascot.
It doesn’t stop there. Here’s the list of trademarks the team is currently pursuing (or have tried to obtain), according to the Seattle Times:
- The number 12
- The number 12 in the same font featured on their jerseys
- “Boom”
- “Go Hawks”
- “We are 12”
- “The 12s”
Among the trademarks opposed by the team, or at least where the lawyers considered opposition:
- “Batch No. 12”
- “Lady 12s”
- “12 Nation”
- “District 12”
- “12th Blend”
- “Beware of Hawks”
- “Lady Hawks”
- “Legion of 12”
It’s an all out trademark blitz (football term, non-copyrighted) the likes of which we haven’t seen since RG3 made a grab for the country’s most popular inspirational rubber wristband phrases.
Even RG3's fellow 2012 draftee, quarterback Russell Wilson, has joined the trademarking efforts. He trademarked his nickname "Dangeruss Wilson" as well as beating RG3 to a pair of motivational cliches: "Why Not You" and "No Time 2 Sleep."
The NBA and NHL are opposing the Seahawks trademark applications for “Go Hawks” because those leagues also feature teams with hawk-related names. The Feds put the brakes on the attempt to trademark “boom” because it could be confused for other brand names.
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