The Utah hockey club held a naming contest and The Yetis won, so the club applied for patent protection for the name.
If you're keeping score at home, all major sports teams get trademarks so that no one else can produce merchandise using that name. Sure, it protects them from another club using the name and causing some confusion, but if we're being honest it's about money.
The trademark office said no, because it might be confused with the yeti cooler products which already have the yeti brand trademarked.
Sure the hockey club would be yetis with an s, but because they will sell merchandise including mugs and coolers, there likely will be confusion by the consumer.
That leaves the hockey club these likely options:
1. Respond to the trademark office, and try and convince them that it's different. - this would probably end up in expensive and time consuming litigation
2. Find a way to work with the Yeti brand (thus eliminating the confusion) - this would probably be infeasible
3. Select another name - while this makes the most sense, will a billionaire accept defeat?
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