-Martha Engel, Attorney

I’m counting down the minutes to leaving my office later today to begin my favorite weekend of the year – the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament!  Even though my bubble was bursted on Selection Sunday – my team didn’t make it this year – I am always thrilled by the drama

-Martha Engel, Attorney

I laughed when I saw yesterday’s Adweek article about Heinz adopting Don Draper’s “Pass the Heinz” pitch from the hit show “Mad Men.”  Given the lackluster creativity observed from the Super Bowl ads, have we actually reached a point where a creative says “hey remember that Mad Men episode? let’s just

We write a lot here about the scope and strength of trademark rights and how that determination is often intertwined to making intelligent likelihood of confusion determinations.

Does “April Madness” fall within the NCAA’s scope of trademark rights for “March Madness“?

Likelihood of confusion? Is “March Madness” a famous mark deserving protection from

You don’t have to be a sports fan to be aware of MARCH MADNESS, the name associated with the annual tournament to determine the college basketball national champion. The tournament is organized by the National Collegiate Athletics Association. The name MARCH MADNESS is derived from the fact that the tournament occurs almost exclusively in March.

– Draeke Weseman, Weseman Law Office, PLLC

Last week, the Chicago Sun Times profiled Loeb & Loeb attorney Douglas Masters, the NCAA’s outside counsel in charge of trademark enforcement during March Madness. Licensing the official sponsorships is big business, and enforcement demands require Masters to send out hundreds of cease-and-desist letters to both accidental infringers

Following a nice evening out chatting with Kevin O’Keefe, it’s time for my favorite weekend of all – the NCAA tournament.

Now this post isn’t necessarily about basketball, but rather rivalries. In particular, rivalries between the state of Michigan and the state of North Carolina. Michigan v Duke, Michigan State v. North Carolina…there’s plenty

Spring is here! Although it certainly doesn’t look or feel like it up here in Minnesota.  And more importantly, March Madness is here!!!!  Hope you have enjoyed watching the games thus far.

Like the SUPER BOWL and the OLYMPICS, MARCH MADNESS is just one of those phrases to maybe stay away from.  The NCAA owns

– Derek Allen, Attorney –

It’s the end of February, which by my calculations means its almost the beginning of March, which means OH YES FINALLY MARCH MADNESS ASDFNLEKLDFNDF!!!!!!!!!!!!!   (Apologies, I just get a little excited thinking about it.)  This is without a doubt my favorite sporting event of the year.  Once you include the conference tournaments where each of the winners get a bid to the Big Dance, starting next week every team in college basketball has the opportunity to win the national title if they can string together enough wins.  Time to get hot Grambling State!

Excitement is building here in the Twin Cities as the Gophers knocked off #1 Indiana last night, all but assuring its spot in the tournament.  Excitement is building here in my office as the Wisconsin Badgers moved to within a game of first place in the Big Ten with a team that looks a lot like the Winthrop & Weinstine rec league team.

While the tournament itself is widely regarding as the most exciting in American sports (I’ll hedge so I don’t offend the rest of the world and the World Cup, although I prefer the Euros myself), anyone who has attended the first weekend’s games knows the atmosphere in the arenas is often lacking.  A combination of teams travelling hundreds and thousands of miles from campus for opening round games, the small fan base of many lower seeded teams, and the cavernous arenas that play host to many of the games all combine for lackluster crowds.  The notable exceptions are, of course, North Carolina and Duke who somehow always get their opening round games scheduled about 10 minutes from campus.  The lack of atmosphere at non-Tobacco Road games is especially unfortunate when regular season college basketball games probably feature the most boisterous crowds in American sports (again, hedging for those abroad because I’ve never been hit with a bag of urine at a college basketball game and bonfires in the crowd are usually absent).

My partial solution is to stop scheduling these games at large, NBA (and in some cases, NFL) stadiums.  For example, when the tournament is here in Minneapolis, the opening round games have been held in the Metrodome.  The stadium gets filled to 20% of capacity and the atmosphere is terrible.  Meanwhile, the Barn is perhaps my favorite arena in the Big Ten and sits idle about two miles away.  NCAA, schedule the games at the Barn!  Not to leave my home state out, opening round games should be played at the Kohl Center (or better yet, the Field House), not the Bradley Center where they usually occur.

For those interested (I’m looking at you NCAA!), my 16 suggestions, which would host the opening games ever year, are below the jump:Continue Reading Tweaking March Madness

For all you sports fans out there, March is pretty much the greatest month of the year.  The spring thaw is underway, spring training has kicked off in Florida and Arizona, the first PGA major of the year – the Masters – right on the horizon.  And, that’s right, March is the time for “March