Keeping ‘Super Bowl’ Trademark Safe Full-Time Job

Super Bowl 2018 was in many ways no different than National Football League championship games of previous years. Behind the scenes, the National Football League was as zealous as ever about protecting its intellectual property from those who would attempt an end run around the league’s trademarks and copyrights. The NFL first trademarked the term “Super Bowl” in 1969, the year of Super Bowl III, and it has been fiercely policing unauthorized uses by advertisers and others ever since. 

This article explores the ways in which advertisers are moving away from traditional marketing methods and experimenting with social media platforms and new ways of engaging viewers, and how this makes the league’s job more complicated.