SALT LAKE CITY — Utah’s NHL team is going on the offensive, suing a hockey bag company in hopes of having the courts step in and resolve a trademark dispute.
The Utah Mammoth hockey team filed the lawsuit this month against Mammoth Hockey LLC, sellers of “high-end hockey bags.”
According to the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court, the hockey bag company supported the NHL team adopting the Mammoth name — which it did after gathering public input over the course of last season — “and even approached [the team] about a possible collaboration.” But in June, the bag company “reversed course,” the lawsuit alleges, and claimed the NHL team’s name violated trademark rights.
The bag company has since threatened litigation in “some unknown forum, at some unknown time,” the lawsuit states.
“The uncertainty created by [the bag company’s] actions, which has persisted for months, with no action as of yet, has become intolerable,” lawyers for the Utah Mammoth wrote in the lawsuit.
The Mammoth and its owners, SEG Hockey, have asked the courts to settle the trademark issue under the U.S. Declaratory Judgement Act.
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