Floyd Mayweather Slogan Too Common to Be Trademark, TTAB Says

Boxing promoter Floyd Mayweather Jr.'s “Past Present Future” slogan is commonly used in non-trademark manner on T-shirts and therefore can’t indicate who made it, a trademark tribunal said.

The phrase Mayweather Promotions LLC sought to register would be perceived by prospective T-shirt purchasers as a “commonplace expression of a familiar concept,” the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board said Thursday in a precedential decision. A slogan can only serve as a trademark if it indicates to consumers the source of a product, and the TTAB said Mayweather’s phrase can’t function as a T-shirt trademark.

Putting words on a T-shirt generally isn’t ...