There’s still no official acknowledgment of SEAL Team 6. But at least the Navy isn’t letting everyone else profit off their success.
Following in the footsteps of Disney and other capitalists, the U.S. Navy is finally trademarking their famed name.
A week after Disney claimed the name “SEAL TEAM 6” with the apparent intention to emblazon the name on everything from hoodies to snowglobes, the people behind the name’s fame finally sprung into action. The Navy has registered two trademarks, in order to ensure the heroes maintain some rights to their own name.
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They applied for the trademark rights to “NAVY SEALS” for posters and clothing and “SEAL TEAM” as a collective membership mark, which essentially makes the “SEAL TEAM” name a registered group name like REALTOR or CPA. Does this mean we’ll start seeing SEAL TEAM on the soldiers’ business cards?
The Navy will now have the exclusive rights to their name – well, at least one iteration of it – for use on goods. But because they struck so late, trademarks on other versions have already been snapped up. “SEAL TEAM 6” and “NAVY SEAL” are trademarked by watchmaker Resco. While not having a trademark doesn’t forbid the Navy from using their own name, it would legally prevent them from producing goods with any form of the name registered to another owner.
While we don’t anticipate any form of the “SEAL Team 6″ joining the Navy’s trademark repertoire, we’re pleased to see the Navy claiming imminent domain where it counts.
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