It’s not just domain squatting but trademark squatting as well

The Washington football team of the NFL will be making an announcement today that they will being moving on from the name “Redskins”

The new name will not be announced today but there has been a lot of speculation. Some have thought Washington Warriors, the interesting thing here, Daniel Snyder the majority owner of the Washington football organization, had purchased the rights to a Washington expansion franchise in the Arena football team (the league is now defunct). The name he was going to use if was Washington Warriors.

The domain name WashingtonWarriors.com has been registered since 1999. Coinciding with the time Snyder got the Arena franchise rights.

The domain name currently points to a Sedo page which you usually see after a domain name has been purchased there. Snyder abandoned the trademark application on Washington Warriors according to the Washington Post.

Meet Martin McCaulay

Mr McCaulay has registered several trademarks relating to the issue. He started back in 2015.

ProFootball Talk writes:

As of the posting of the FOX5 story in May 2015, McCaulay had registered for trademark protection on the following Washington-based names: Americans, Bravehearts, Federals, Forces, Founders, Gladiators, Monuments, Natives, Pandas, Pigskins, Red-Tailed Hawks, Renegades, Sharks, Veterans, and Tribe. McCaulay told FOX5 that he had spent $20,000 to secure the various trademarks.

Recently filed applications for the following trademarks: Washington Redtails (July 7 and July 5), Washington Monuments (July 6), Washington Veterans (July 6), Washington Renegades (July 6), Washington Red-Tailed Hawks (July 4), and Washington Americans (June 18).

One of the things mentioned this morning on Golic and Wingo about the situation was talk about potential hold up in getting trademark rights.

So whether the new team name will be announced next week or next month, the trademark squatting might throw a wrench into the chosen name.