Yankees Star Blocks ‘Here Comes the Judge’ Trademarks on Appeal

Baseball slugger Aaron Judge notched a big defensive trademark win at the Federal Circuit, cementing the rejection of marks whose registrations he opposed.

The New York Yankees star outfielder convinced the appeals court that he’d been using the catch phrases “ALL RISE” and “HERE COMES THE JUDGE,” as well as a design with a gavel on a baseball diamond, before a New Jersey man applied to register trademarks on all three. The court Thursday affirmed a April 2023 Trademark Trial and Appeal Board ruling rejecting the applications.

The administrative tribunal reasonably determined Judge and the Major League Baseball Players Association “licensed products bearing Judge’s personal indicia and judicial phrases or symbols, all of which came before” the dates that Michael Chisena filed his trademark applications, wrote Judge Alan D. Lourie in an opinion issued by the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.

Chisena, who represented himself in the appeal, chose not to challenge the TTAB’s separate finding that the trademarks, if granted to Chisena, would likely cause confusion with Judge’s trademarks.

Chisena’s appeal instead challenged the notion that Judge’s trademarks are inherently distinctive, such that the ballplayer has intellectual property rights in them to begin with. Chisena argued they merely reproduced Judge’s last name and his nickname for use on apparel.

But the Federal Circuit agreed with Judge and the TTAB that the primary significance of the trademark phrases was the “dual meaning, playing on both the judicial and surname meanings,” which undercut Chisena’s distinctiveness argument.

Circuit Judge Todd M. Hughes and District Judge Beth Labson Freeman of the US District Court for the Northern District of California, who was sitting by designation, joined the opinion.

The MLBPA and Judge are represented by McCarter & English.

The case is Chisena v. Major League Baseball Players Ass’n, Fed. Cir., 23-2073, affirmed 1/8/26.