This is getting ridiculous. Nola.com’s Stephanie Riegel reports that the NFL has issued a cease-and-desist order to the New Orleans-based apparel brand DNO, claiming that its long-running “Defend New Orleans” logo infringes on a trademark owned by the league. Popular with New Orleans Saints fans, the logo features a spiked skull wearing a fleur-de-lis, often portrayed in black and gold. DNO founder Jac Currie began selling apparel with the signature logo in 2003.
It’s a battle the NFL has lost before. In 2010, the league issued similar letters to local T-shirt vendors in the New Orleans area, only to get drawn and quartered in a conference call with former Louisiana attorney general Buddy Caldwell.
“They’ve conceded and they’ve said they have no intention of claiming the fleur-de-lis, which would be ridiculous, or the ‘Who Dat,’ which would be equally ridiculous,” Caldwell said at the time.
But now the NFL is once again trying to carve itself an even larger piece of the pie. The $150 billion corporation retains a small army of attorneys with too little work to do, but billable hours stay winning, so about once every 10 years they try a stunt like this. We’ll see if they’re successful this time, but DNO is preparing to defend itself.
Currie’s attorney Scott Sternberg argues, as Caldwell did in 2010, that the NFL has no claim to the logo given its historical significance to the city. He wrote: “The fleur-de-lis has been synonymous with New Orleans since its founding in 1718. It has been featured on the city’s official flag since 1918. The area was named for Phillippe II the Duke of Orleans, whose family coat of arms used the fleur-de-lis.”
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