American Needle Inc. v. National Football League
August 19, 2008
U.S. Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit
Case No. 07-4006
Decided August 18, 2008
Before Kanne, Sykes and Tinder.
American Needle Inc., (ANI) a former licensee for NFL headwear, sued the NFL, its teams, and Reebok (NFL) for alleged antitrust violations after the NFL made Reebok its sole headwear licensee. ANI claimed this licensing agreement violated the Sherman Antitrust Act (15 USC 1) because the individual teams were bound by the NFL's licensing agreement even though each team held trademarks for their individual team logos. ANI argued that the agreement among the teams to allow NFL to grant exclusive licenses was a conspiracy to restrict other companies from obtaining licenses to use team trademarks. The lower court granted summary judgment for NFL, finding that the Sherman Act was not meant to apply to parent-subsidiary relationships such as that found between the NFL and its individual teams. The decision was based partly on Copperweld Corp. v. Independence Tube Corp., 467 US 752 (1984) which found a parent company and its subsidiaries are considered one entity in antitrust situations. ANI appealed.
The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the lower court's decision, finding that although Copperweld may not apply to all sports leagues or even to all facets of a single sports league, in this case the facts showed that the NFL teams shared a common economic interest in licensing its intellectual property. The court found that nothing in the Sherman Antitrust Act prohibited the NFL teams from cooperating in order to compete with other forms of entertainment. - Aaron Stringer
2008 U.S. App. LEXIS 17553
2008 WL 3822782