You’ll never know until you try. That’s what “they” say, “they” usually being your parents or others who want to encourage you to stretch beyond your comfort zone to make an effort beyond what we think we can do. It;s a phrase that we associate with timidity, but in a certain context it applies to the more brazen among us, those who might dare something so bold that they think they might get away with it, if only for the fact that no one ever considered that someone might try to.
Fresh off a Champions League final victory that saw them proclaimed the champions of Europe (from the period of June 2019 to June 2020, at least), Liverpool Football Club have made an application with the Intellectual Property Office to trademark the word “Liverpool” itself. As reported in The Independent, the club insists that the move is merely a measure to protect against fraudulent merchandise made to capitalize on the club’s success and popularity, and an effort to capitalize on branding efforts that have heretofore gone on without the Reds’ assent. The club also states that the filing is only to do with Liverpool as it relates to football, and isn’t an effort to claim trademark rights over the entirety of Merseyside.
Still, the claim is an ambitious one, even for a club riding the crest of enthusiasm that comes with a major football trophy. The Independent piece states that the club views the move as “necessary to raise funds to reinvest in transfers and the stadium,” which is a curious plea of poverty from a club that is among the richest in the world and, again, won the most prestigious football trophy in Europe. But Liverpool can’t even necessarily claim complete football ownership over its own city; while very much the pesky little brothers of the pairing, crosstown rivals Everton have their own proud, albeit far less successful, history, and passionate fans who would insist upon the Blues’ place in the firmament, lesser though it might be.
The move isn’t without precedent, however; as noted in the same article, Chelsea and Southampton, Liverpool’s compatriots in England’s Premier League, have successfully registered the shared nomenclature between club and city/area to capitalize on their relative popularity. But the comparison isn’t exactly apples to apples, as far as the respective locales sharing club names; Chelsea is an area within West London, and Southampton a relatively smaller city on the south coast; neither can be said to lay claim to the rights over the name of one of the country’s largest and most noteworthy cities.
Still, the club’s claim over only the footballing aspects of the name might be forbearance enough for the application to be approved. And Liverpool can hope that the matter is adjudicated by someone who reveres Bill Shankly and Bob Paisley as they do the faithful application of the law; after all, when everything seems to be going your way, why not press your luck?
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