Indian envoy warns of 'big red line,' days after charges laid in Nijjar case
India's envoy to Canada insists relations between the two countries are positive overall, despite what he describes as 'a lot of noise.'
Major League Baseball's Cleveland Indians, which is changing its name to the Guardians, was sued for trademark infringement on Wednesday by a local roller derby team also named the Guardians.
The lawsuit was filed three months after the Indians announced it would change its name https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/cleveland-baseball-team-change-name-guardians-2021-07-23 following the 2021 season in response to years of pressure from Native American groups and human rights activists that viewed the Indians name used since 1915 as racist and degrading.
"Two sports teams in the same city cannot have identical names," the roller derby team's lawyers said in the complaint filed in Cleveland federal court.
"There cannot be two 'Cleveland Guardians' teams in Cleveland, and, to be blunt, plaintiff was here first."
The co-ed roller derby team said it has used the Guardians name since 2013, and registered it with Ohio in 2017.
It wants an injunction and damages for the alleged confusion and loss of goodwill.
Indians spokesman Bart Swain said in an email that the team remains "confident in our position to become the Guardians. We believe there is no conflict between the parties and their ability to operate in their respective business areas."
There have been occasions when teams in the same city shared names, even at the professional level.
For example, New York had baseball and football teams named the Giants from 1925 to 1957, while St. Louis had teams in those sports named the Cardinals from 1960 to 1987.
Trademark lawyers said Wednesday's lawsuit was not frivolous but would likely be settled, with the Indians paying money to the roller derby team to use the Guardians name.
"There is no blanket rule in trademark law that two teams, even in professional sports, cannot have the same name," said Michael Hobbs, a partner at Troutman Pepper Hamilton Sanders.
Andrew Skale, a partner at the Mintz law firm, said that for the Indians, "an advisable move would be to buy the roller derby team's name from them."
Talks to resolve the dispute broke down on Tuesday.
"As a nonprofit organization that loves sports and the city of Cleveland, we are saddened that the Indians have forced us into having to protect the name we have used here for years," roller derby team owner Gary Sweatt said in a statement.
India's envoy to Canada insists relations between the two countries are positive overall, despite what he describes as 'a lot of noise.'
With Donald Trump sitting just feet away, Stormy Daniels testified Tuesday at the former president's hush money trial about a sexual encounter the porn actor says they had in 2006 that resulted in her being paid to keep silent during the presidential race 10 years later.
The U.S. paused a shipment of bombs to Israel last week over concerns that Israel was approaching a decision on launching a full-scale assault on the southern Gaza city of Rafah against the wishes of the U.S.
Footage from dozens of security cameras in the area of Drake’s Bridle Path mansion could be the key to identifying the suspect responsible for shooting and seriously injuring a security guard outside the rapper’s sprawling home early Tuesday morning, a former Toronto homicide detective says.
A chicken farmer near Mattawa made an 'eggstraordinary' find Friday morning when she discovered one of her hens laid an egg close to three times the size of an average large chicken egg.
Susan Buckner, best known for playing peppy Rydell High School cheerleader Patty Simcox in the 1978 classic movie musical 'Grease,' has died. She was 72.
Accused killer Jeremy Skibicki could have a challenging time convincing a judge that he is not criminally responsible for the deaths of four Indigenous women, a legal analyst says.
A Calgary bylaw requiring businesses to charge a minimum bag fee and only provide single-use items when requested has officially been tossed.
Two Nova Scotia men are dead after a boat they were travelling in sank in the Annapolis River in Granville Centre, N.S., on Monday.
An Ontario man says he paid more than $7,700 for a luxury villa he found on a popular travel website -- but the listing was fake.
Whether passionate about Poirot or hungry for Holmes, Winnipeg mystery obsessives have had a local haunt for over 30 years in which to search out their latest page-turners.
Eighty-two-year-old Susan Neufeldt and 90-year-old Ulrich Richter are no spring chickens, but their love blossomed over the weekend with their wedding at Pine View Manor just outside of Rosthern.
Alberta Ballet's double-bill production of 'Der Wolf' and 'The Rite of Spring' marks not only its final show of the season, but the last production for twin sisters Alexandra and Jennifer Gibson.
A mother goose and her goslings caused a bit of a traffic jam on a busy stretch of the Trans-Canada Highway near Vancouver Saturday.
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
A group of SaskPower workers recently received special recognition at the legislature – for their efforts in repairing one of Saskatchewan's largest power plants after it was knocked offline for months following a serious flood last summer.
A police officer on Montreal's South Shore anonymously donated a kidney that wound up drastically changing the life of a schoolteacher living on dialysis.