'Bully Tactic’
WWE goes toe-to-toe with wine school
By DOUGLAS S. MALAN and KAREN SLOAN
The Philadelphia Wine School’s logo for its “Sommelier Smackdown” event features a hand preparing to smash a wine bottle into a person’s face. But, the school says, that’s about all that links the event to professional wrestling.
Stamford-based World Wrestling Entertainment Inc. strongly disagrees. The WWE is fighting the wine school’s attempt to register the name “Sommelier Smackdown” for competitions it has held since 2007. The WWE “SmackDown” program has aired on television since 1999.
“The WWE has been the registered owner of the trademark SmackDown for entertainment purposes for many, many years,” said K&L Gates partner Jerry McDevitt, who represents the WWE. “We sent a letter saying, ‘Guess what, you can’t use that.’”
Philadelphia Wine School owner Keith Wallace said, however, he has no intention of backing down. “This is just a standard bully tactic” by the WWE, he said. “It’s impossible for them to claim that smackdown is not a generic term.”
Wallace saw little chance that anyone would confuse his event — in which a well-known sommelier competes against a member of the wine school staff to create the best food and wine pairings — with the WWE program in which professional wrestlers offer up body slams to cheering crowds. “The juxtaposition of these two concepts — wine and guys jumping around in masks and things like that — is just a funny thing,” Wallace said.
Stamford IP attorney Eric C. Osterberg of Fox Rothschild, who is not involved in the dispute, agreed that the main question is whether people would link the wine event with the wrestling show. “I sort of doubt that,” he said.
However, while that might clear the wine school to use the name, Osterberg said the WWE may be able to block efforts to register it with the trademark office. And it doesn’t matter that the WWE spells it “SmackDown” while the wine event uses “Smackdown.” When registering a trademark, “you’re accounting for use in writing and speech,” Osterberg said.
This isn’t the first name dispute involving the wrestling circuit. The WWE was known was the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) until the environmental organization World Wide Fund for Nature (also WWF) sued over the use of the initials on wrestling merchandise. In 2002, the wrestling organization switched to WWE.
“I don’t fault the WWE for trying to protect something that is closely associated with them,” Osterberg said. “The WWE is likely thinking that as absurd as this looks, we have to protect our trademarks.”
It’s the same type of challenge trademark owners face when products become commonly used buzzwords. Osterberg noted that Xerox has launched media and advertising campaigns to discourage the use of its company name as a synonym for photocopying. The fear is that such casual use could lead courts to declare “xerox” a generic word.
Wallace plans to fight the WWE for as long as he can. “I have a staff of five,” Wallace said. “If I have to choose between fighting the WWE or paying my staff’s health care, I’m going with the staff’s health care.” •
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