July 10 marks the end of one of the most important events in the sporting calendar and one of the most iconic tennis tournaments in the world: Wimbledon. The All England Lawn Tennis Club (the “Club”) has owned multiple registered trademarks for the famous Wimbledon name and other prominent signs for some time. However, the dark green and purple colorway – which has been associated with the Wimbledon tennis tournament for over a Century – has only been protected as a registered trademark in the UK since 2016.
Among the 2017 inductees into the National Inventors Hall of Fame is Howard Head, the inventor of both the laminate ski as well as the oversized tennis racket. Sunday, September 10th, marked the 42nd anniversary of the filing date for one of two patents for which Head has been inducted, affording us an opportunity to look back at the innovative contributions to sports from an engineer who just couldn’t stand his own poor athleticism.
On Wednesday, January 11th, retractable roof system developer Uni-Systems LLC of Minneapolis, MN, filed a patent infringement suit against multiple defendants, including the United States Tennis Association (USTA). The lawsuit alleges that multiple defendants conspired to infringe upon Uni-Systems’ patents and trade secrets by planning to build a retractable roof over a USTA tennis stadium in New York. The patent infringement suit has been filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York (E.D.N.Y.).