Bombers away, says AFL

[Beaussie]

Surely the AFL and Essendon will protect their registered trademark here.

Bombers away, says AFL
Michael Gleeson
July 14, 2011 Vote


The Brisbane Bombers are bidding to enter the NRL as early as 2013.

Rugby league has its eyes set on one of the proudest names in Australian rules. Michael Gleeson reports.

FOR a raid on AFL, rugby league could not have chosen a more appropriate name than the Bombers, but scarcely could they have chosen a more provocative one.

A Brisbane-based NRL expansion team bidding to launch in 2013 is believed to be intent on doing so, branded as the Brisbane Bombers. Though details of the rival code's plan were only emerging last night, the AFL and some at Windy Hill are far from impressed.

''Essendon has a long and proud history of being called the Bombers so we would want to make sure whatever was proposed didn't infringe on the rights of Essendon,'' league football operations chief Adrian Anderson said last night.

The name Brisbane Bombers was registered with ASIC on July 5 but the head of the bid consortium yesterday refused to comment on the name of the proposed team ahead of an announcement today. Nevertheless, a logo has been leaked featuring a bomber pilot and wings with the name Bombers across the top of his aviator cap and goggles. It is believed the club plans to wear blue and orange/yellow rather than Essendon's black and red.

Last night Essendon board member and former chairman Ray Horsburgh said he personally didn't like the idea of another club seeking to use the Bombers name but he had yet to discuss the matter at club level. He said the rugby league move would be discussed at a regular board meeting next week.

Essendon last night also sought clarification from the AFL's lawyers over clubs' intellectual property ownership and confirmed that both Essendon Bombers and Bombers were separately registered as trade marks by the AFL.

All AFL club names, colours/designs, logos and brands were registered as trade marks by the AFL at the time the commission was established in 1985. Any threat to the AFL's intellectual property presented by the use of a name such as the Bombers will be dealt with by the AFL lawyers rather than the clubs.

''We are comfortable with our brand and the ownership of our brand,'' said Essendon chief executive Ian Robson who last night rang club chairman David Evans, who is in Kenya, to brief him.

''I am flying blind on this a bit because I have not seen the detail of what is being proposed. But because it is an IP issue and a matter for lawyers principally, it is an AFL matter,'' Robson said.

''I am pretty relaxed about it because we have a brand and a brand name that is 130 years in the making and is built on 130 years of tradition and culture and emotional investment.

''The best form of flattery is imitation I suppose. But the lawyers will do their jobs and make sure the IP issues are protected from our side or their (the AFL) side.''

''We don't own the colours red and black, any club can use those. AC Milan wear red and black,'' he said.

However black with a red sash in Australia was registered as part of the Essendon trade mark.

The AFL confronted trade mark issues over the choice of names and use of colors when it was establishing the Giants and Suns.

The Brisbane-based expansion team is only one of a number of consortia hoping to win approval from a soon-to-be established NRL commission to get the licence to join the NRL.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/AFL/AFL-news/bomb ... z1S1aK89iU

[TLPG]

If it's not the only proposal for the second NRL team in Brisbane, if the NRL is smart they'll nip this in the bud pronto as a court battle will hurt them and make the AFL look like heroes in the eyes of civil rights people and the reaction will be anti NRL to the point that the Lions and the Suns will murder the Broncos and the Titans combined on attendance and membership!