Andrew Rizzo For Nike and Bronny James, it looks like it’s back to the drawing board. The United States Patent and Trademark Office has denied Nike’s trademark application for Bronny’s signature logo, citing a “likelihood of confusion” with an already registered mark.
Bronny’s logo features a lowercase “b” with the number “9” in the center, a familiar initial-plus-jersey-number combination as far as signature logos go. The mark reportedly conflicts with one owned by Back9 Golf Apparel, per examining attorney P. Scott Craven. To make matters more complicated, another company called The Back Nine Golf, an indoor golf franchise with over 300 U.S. locations, uses branding that’s arguably even closer to Nike’s “B9” logo application.
Obviously, this presents an issue for Nike, which has already released sneakers featuring Bronny’s now-denied “B9” logo and has more planned drops on the way. One path forward would be designing a new logo, though cutting Back9 Golf Apparel a check is probably the more likely route.
