Liverpool City Council will block Liverpool Football Club’s (LFC) attempt to trade mark the city’s name, reports have revealed.
It comes after the Premier League side applied to trade mark the word ‘Liverpool’ with the Intellectual property Office (IPO) earlier this year.
In its application, the club said it was looking to protect its brand, but “only in the context of football products and services”. This would include the sale of merchandise such as toys, photographs, clothing and broadcasting rights.
Posting a statement on its website, a club spokesperson said: “Our success and global appeal has unfortunately made LFC a target for counterfeiters, those that wish to abuse the content that we produce and those that wish to affiliate with LFC without providing any investment.
“The LFC Brand Protection team work tirelessly to protect our supporters, partners and LFC itself from those that wish to exploit LFC.”
Despite choosing to limit the scope of its application to goods and services in connection with the football club, the reigning European champions have faced significant opposition from the likes of Liverpool City Council and the City of Liverpool Football Club.
In a meeting with representatives from both organisations in August, Liverpool FC CEO Peter Moore said: “I met with City of Liverpool FC to discuss the club’s application to register ‘Liverpool’ in a football context for goods and services.
“We are trying to protect LFC against large-scale counterfeiting operations and are not in any way targeting small businesses and clubs.”
But the football club’s attempts to ease fears may have gone unheard after the Mayor of Liverpool Joe Anderson officially lodged a petition to oppose the trade mark application.
Announcing his decision earlier this week, Mr Anderson said: “I have informed LFC that I and LCC will oppose their attempt to Trade Mark the name Liverpool.
“I do not believe you can Trade Mark a City name. I value our relationship with LFC and we will work to help remove counterfeit goods, but we will also protect local traders and our brand.”
Liverpool FC is not the first football club to attempt to register its city’s name as a trademark. In 2013, Tottenham became a registered trade mark for all goods and services relating to Premier League side Tottenham FC, while Chelsea FC was also granted a trade mark for the word ‘Chelsea’ – but only for “goods relating to and/or bearing indicia of Chelsea Football Club”.
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