Nightclub vs golf club: Club LIV and LIV Golf trademark beef
CLUB LIV is trying to block the trademarks requested by the LIV Golf League
On March 11, 2023, one of the most popular clubs in the world filed a notice of opposition to block trademark applications for…a golf league.
LIV is a nightclub that sits in the Fontainebleau Miami Beach. It opened in 2008 and is uber-popular. It’s essentially a rite of passage for rappers to name check the club in a song.
LIV Golf is a professional golf tour financed by a sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia.
The club registered its first LIV trademark in 2011 for entertainment services followed by subsequent registrations (starting in 2014) for clothes, bags, concert and festival promotion, musical events, bar services, cocktail lounges, jewelry, etc.
In 2021, the golf league applied to register the phrase LIV GOLF LEAGUE (and related marks).
The club is primarily upset because the golf tour’s mark “consist of the whole” of the club’s mark. The club makes three legal arguments.
Prior right – LIV was first.
Likelihood of consumer confusion – LIV and LIV Golf are similar on their face and consumers would get confused.
Dilution by blurring – allowing the golf tour to use “LIV” would diminish the club’s distinctiveness.
Quick note. The lawyers for the club do something really clever in the Notice of Opposition. They lawyers want to show that the good and services offered by LIV and LIV Golf League are one and the same (absent the golfing part). To do that, the lawyers assert that the golf tour provides “music entertainment, live DJ entertainment, ‘bar and party vibes’” but there is not a source for that quote. I’ve not combed the entire application file for LIV Golf, but based on a quick search, that language is not in the application file. That language comes from various pages on LIV Golf’s website. Like this one:
Notice of Opposition is available here: https://ttabvue.uspto.gov/ttabvue/v?pno=91283901&pty=OPP&eno=1