Yankees Aaron Judge wins bitter legal battle to stop man from cashing in on his brand
Aaron Judge has knocked another one out of the park, but this time it was with a gavel.
An acrimonious legal battle with its roots in Judge’s breakout rookie season of 2017 is finally finished after a federal judge ruled that a Long Island man can’t cash in on Judge’s slogans. It could mean millions of dollars in branding and merchandise sales for the star Yankees slugger.
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Michael P. Chisena claimed that he should be able to sell shirts and hats that said “All Rise” and “Here Comes The Judge” because he filed to trademark them first. But the United States Patent and Trademark Office struck out Chisena, saying that there was a “preponderance of the evidence” that most people would tie the catchphrases to Judge and that they should belong to him.
Also in limbo was a logo of the scales of justice balancing baseballs, which was superimposed on a baseball diamond, with a gavel in right field — a nod to Judge’s defensive position.
Fans “would recognize, associate, and perceive (the slogans and the symbol) as pointing to a single source: Aaron Judge, the one sponsoring or authorizing the merchandise,” Administrative Trademark Judge David Heasley wrote in an opinion released Wednesday.
The Major League Baseball Players Association joined Judge in filing to block Chisena. Lawyers for Judge and the MLBPA and for Chisena didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment from The Athletic, which examined more than a thousand pages of filings dating to March 2018 that include statements from Judge, his agent Page Odle and even Judge’s mother. The sides tried to settle in 2018 and 2019, but failed, according to the documents.
Mark Beal, a sports marketing specialist and assistant professor at Rutgers University, said that Judge’s opportunities to “use and leverage” these trademarks “are endless.”
“From MLB to the Yankees to a company like Fanatics, to any and all other entities or organizations or brands that he partners with today, tomorrow or 10 years from now, these trademarks and future trademarks can be used as merchandise, marketing (and) advertising that he can monetize,” Beal said Friday morning.
Judge, 30, is among the most recognizable athletes in the world. He’s the best player on the New York Yankees — the most valuable franchise in MLB, worth about $7.1 billion, according to Forbes. He has countless sponsorship deals with business giants, including Adidas, Hulu and Pepsi. His No. 99 jersey is consistently among the highest sellers in the league. And, in December, he agreed to a nine-year, $360 million contract extension with the Yankees — one of the richest pacts in sports history.
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But he shot to fame in 2017, his enormous frame (6-foot-7, 282 pounds) matching his tremendous power as he hit 52 home runs — a rookie record at the time — and finished second in the American League MVP voting. He was on the cover of the May edition of Sports Illustrated with “All Rise” superimposed into the background of a photo of him taking a mammoth swing. That same month, Judge was a guest on “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon,” in a skit where he surprised baseball fans on the streets of New York City. He also was named American League Rookie of the Month in April, May and June, and American League Player of the Month in June and September. The Yankees created a special cheering section for him in Yankee Stadium called “The Judge’s Chambers.”
But his national coming out party may have been when he won the 2017 Home Run Derby in front of a packed crowd at Marlins Park in Miami and before an ESPN primetime audience of millions of viewers.
That was on July 10 — the same day that Chisena says he first emailed his attorney to investigate whether someone had already trademarked the phrases “All Rise” and “Here Comes The Judge.”
Four days later, Chisena officially filed for the trademarks. He wanted to slap the phrases on clothing, including “t-shirts, shirts, shorts, pants, sweatshirts, sweatpants, jackets, jerseys, athletic uniforms, and caps,” according to the documents. Then, on Oct. 12 — the day after the Yankees beat Cleveland to win the AL Division Series — Chisena trademarked the symbol. Judge filed to oppose the trademark claims in November 2017.
But, according to Chisena, the timing was all just one big coincidence.
He’s not even a fan of Major League Baseball, he said in a separate filing, despite having once created his own batting tee. He said he wasn’t aware that the phrases for which he filed trademarks were already being used in connection with Judge on social media, at Yankee Stadium and on clothing from MLBPA-sanctioned licensees. In fact, he indicated that he’d never been to Yankee Stadium. Instead, Chisena says he conceived and created the three marks between 2012 and 2015. “I became aware of Aaron Judge at some point in 2017, but do not recall the exact circumstances,” he said.
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Chisena also argued that the phrases “All Rise” and “Here Comes The Judge” had been well known in court settings for years prior to Judge’s professional baseball career and that he couldn’t just suddenly claim ownership to them. In June 2018, Chisena printed shirts — in white and navy blue, the Yankees’ colors — with the phrases and the symbol, sold them at a street fair and said that none of his customers at the time had even mentioned Judge or the Yankees.
Judge’s lawyers argued that Chisena was acting in “bad faith with intent to trade on” Judge’s stardom. Chisena’s lawyer countered, saying that he had been acting in good faith.
Heasley, the trademark judge, wasn’t buying Chisena’s story.
“(Chisena’s) timing, and choice of marks and colors are indeed eyebrow-raising, and his protestations of good faith strain credulity,” the judge wrote.
Chisena had filed for sports-themed trademarks before, the Judge said.
In August 2015, Chisena submitted two logos that looked a lot like the one representing the New York Islanders. He created logos for what he called the “Brooklyn New York Metros” and the “Brooklyn New York Boros” that featured a hockey stick and a goal inside of a circle. Chisena said he conceived of the symbols after attending youth hockey games and that he wanted to make a branding design for hockey equipment and apparel. In November 2015, the Islanders relocated for a period from Nassau Coliseum in Long Island to the Barclays Center in Brooklyn.
(Photo of Aaron Judge: Jessica Alcheh / USA Today)
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