NY Jets Logo Lawsuit Confronts Question of Sports IP’s Value

The man who designed the New York Jets’ recently revived logo faces an uphill battle to enforce copyright and trademark claims against the NFL team.

Jim Pons said in his federal lawsuit he designed the logo first used from 1978 to 1997 outside of his job responsibilities as a video director. But, he said, he was never compensated for his work on the logo, despite the team interviewing him in a video promoting its 2024 revival.

His Nov. 21 copyright complaint in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York also makes a right of publicity claim over the video and aims to cancel the Jets’ trademarks as fraudulently obtained. But Pons has already hit one snag—the US Copyright Office deemed his logo insufficiently creative to register—and could hit others in a suit that nevertheless raises interesting questions about the creation and value of professional sports logos.

The milieu of IP rights involved makes it complicated to extricate precisely what rights might exist, when they came to be, and which particular acts might infringe which rights, IP attorney Mark Sommers of Finnegan Henderson Farabow Garrett & Dunner LLP said.

“If courts, judges, and litigants sometimes have a hard time operating within a field of play of rights, a jury is going to be even more confused,” Sommers said.

The 81-year-old Pons isn’t the first logo designer to sue an NFL team. Amateur artist Frederick Bouchat sued the Baltimore Ravens in 1997, alleging the team used his “Flying B” logo in 1996 and 1997. He won an infringement verdict—but no money.

Pons’ logo, featuring an italicized font similar to one the Jets had previously used and a line connecting a simplified jet to the “J,” arguably embodied much less creativity. He also waited decades to register his work or assert rights, which could hurt his case, practitioners said.

“He should have pursued it a long time ago,” Mitchell Silberberg & Knupp LLP partner Eleanor Lackman said. “We’re not going to get a chance to dive into the more interesting issues because of the lack of timeliness.”

Pons’ attorney, Lee A. Goldberg of Goldberg Cohen LLP, said in a statement the Jets “should fairly compensate Mr. Pons” for his logo that they “continue to misappropriate for enormous profit.”

“The Jets simply continue to take advantage of an unsuspecting elderly layperson,” he said. “He deserves to be treated with fairness and respect. In this dismal season on the field, it’s well past time for the Jets to do the right thing.”

The Jets and their counsel at Foley & Lardner LLP didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Copyright Protection

Pons said in his complaint that he created his logo as the Jets sought a new look in the late 1970s. He added the copyright claim to those in his now-dropped July suit.

Despite the Sept. 6 Copyright Office rejection, the “unique design” exceeds the “extremely low” creativity threshold for registration, Pons said, with the airplane element “making it dynamic and visually appealing.”

“If I’m the plaintiff, that’s my argument: that’s the unique aspect of it,” sports law professor John T. Wolohan of Syracuse University said.

He added, though, the Jets could counter that “there’s nothing unique about it” as he used existing lettering and merely “jazzed it up” with a streak and simple plane shape.

While it’d scuttle the suit, the Jets may not want to attack the design’s originality, IP attorney Evan Everist of Dorsey & Whitney LLP said. While the team could still enforce trademark rights, lacking copyright can still limit protection, he said, putting the team “in a tricky spot.”

That’s not the only issue that would erase the logo’s copyright protection, Everist said. Until the US joined the Berne Convention in 1989, works had to be registered within five years of publication or else fall into the public domain. Pons only applied to register the design this year.

While unauthorized distribution generally isn’t “publication,” Everist said, the Jets could argue the logo’s use was clearly authorized given Pons’ longstanding acquiescence.

The Jets could attack Pons’ rights without undermining their own by arguing the logo was a work for hire, as employers generally own work done at their behest. Pons’ complaint, though, stressed that submitting his logo to compete with various New York graphic artists wasn’t part of his job. Such disputes hinge on the the nature of Pons’ job and the works’ creation, which wouldn’t be a quick out for the Jets, Lackman said.

The Baltimore Ravens’ 1996 helmet design, featuring the “Flying B” logo.

Photographer: Rick Stewart /Allsport via Getty Images

Other Problems

Even if Pons can establish copyright infringement, Bouchat’s case showed damages can be difficult to prove. The US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit affirmed a lower court’s exclusion of most uses of his winged shield with a stylized “B,” leaving only sales of Ravens merchandise featuring it.

Pons’ quest for a share of the Jets’ roughly $100 million in annual merchandise revenue would turn on a battle of damages experts, whose assessments “can differ widely” before the jury is asked to pick a number, Sommers said. The fight could include analysis of licensing revenue, royalty rates, or costs to have a logo created, he said.

Pons’s complaint also said the Jets’ 1974 trademark registration—later revised from an image of its old helmet to one with his design—was fraudulent, as it claims a logo created in 1978 was first used in 1970. Similar deception also dooms its 2023 registration of the logo itself, Pons argued.

The PTO approved the change, though, which could undercut the intent factor needed to establish fraud, Everist said. Moreover, even challenging a trademark registration generally requires some form of interest, and Pons doesn’t purport to have any trademark interest in the logo.

“It’s a really interesting case” because the team is using a logo it didn’t create as a trademark that it owns, Wolohan said. “But without the football team, how much value is that copyright?”

The case is Pons v. National Football League, S.D.N.Y., No. 1:24-cv-04979.