There is an incredible dearth of nuance when it comes to how some companies attempt to enforce their trademarks. A couple of things are true. First, an entity risks losing their marks if they don’t rigorously enforce them against actual infringement. Second, the USPTO is far too lenient in granting marks that are non-creative or which contain very basic characters, like individual letters and numbers. And, third, the results of this are company lawyers suing or opposing trademark applications in a manner that ultimately looks very, very silly.

Arena Football One is a league that has existed for about a year. The small league kicked off its inaugural season in 2024, shortly after filing for trademarks on its names and logo, the latter of which is “AF1”, with the “A” styled to have a football in the center of it. And then Formula 1 came calling.

On Oct. 3, Formula 1, which is a popular international auto racing league, filed a “Notice of Opposition” before the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board against Arena Football One. F1’s grounds for appeal against AF1 include, “likelihood of confusion,” and “likelihood of dilution.”

“The [AF1] Services are entertainment services related to sports, which are highly related to the entertainment services offered by the Formula 1 Companies under the F1 Marks and covered by the F1 Registrations… The Applicant’s Mark encompasses in its entirety the Opposer’s F1 word mark and the ‘F1’ element is identical in sight, sound and commercial impression, and is highly similar to the F1 Marks overall. Both marks are pronounced similarly: ‘A-F-One” and ‘F-One.’ They share the dominant, final sound element “F-One.” The initial “A” in “AF1” is likely to be perceived as a minor variation or prefix, making the marks phonetically very close.” Attorneys for F1 stated in the appeal.

Likelihood of confusion is simply not on offer here. This is where the nuance of trademark law comes into play. It’s not enough for marks to be similar to allege confusion. They also have to, upon examination, exhibit a likelihood of confusion among the hurried morons of the world. I’m simply going to put F1’s and AF1’s logos side by side below for you and let you decide for yourself just how confusing they are.

I’m sorry, but no. The logos aren’t that similar, they use different color combinations, there’s a football in the AF1 logo, as well as the league’s goddamned name. Unless we’re arguing now that morons in a hurry can’t even read basic English words, then there is no confusion to be had here. And I myself am a “moron” when it comes to both F1 racing and arena football in the sense that I don’t know or care about either of them. If someone came up to me and asked if I wanted AF1 tickets, I would ask them what the hell they were talking about, not what time the race is. All the more-so if they called it “Arena Football One,” a name that F1 also opposed.

I suppose what they’re going for here on the dilution claim is dilution by blurring, meaning that F1’s famous mark will be weakened in strength of association with its product due to the similarities with AF1’s. I’m going to go ahead and call bullshit on that one, too. F1 has a handful of races in the United States, sure, but Arena Football One is a relatively small and obscure sports league. I would love to see a shred of evidence for true dilution due to its name and logo by F1. I have to believe the effects of AF1 existing on F1 are essentially non-existent. And, keep in mind, dilution is typically more challenging to prove, as you have to show it actually occurring.

Both Nike and Abercrombie & Fitch have also filed for extensions to oppose the marks. Those seem to make even less sense than the F1 opposition. I have no idea what Nike could be citing in opposition, but is Abercrombie & Fitch really going to suggest that it’s products are going to be confused with an arena football game?

So much of this sort of thing feels like attorneys filing oppositions for the sake of oppositions. And none of it appears designed to actually protect the consumer, which is supposed to be the point of trademark law.

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