Bewilderment abounds
But it is the league's claim to "Who Dat" that has drawn the ire of locals and store owners and has puzzled trademark attorneys.
"Personally, I don't think anyone should be able to own 'Who Dat,'" said Josh Harvey, co-owner of Storyville. "It should belong to the people of the city of New Orleans."
Before it became a rallying cry of fans of the New Orleans Saints, Who Dat was used as a cheer by St. Augustine High School. And before that it was perhaps first heard in minstrel shows in the later 1800s.
The cover for E.E. Rice's 'Summer Nights' featuring the song, 'Who Dat Say Chicken In Dis Crowd,' originally published by M. Whitmark & Sons around 1898.
By late afternoon Thursday, social media sites were plastered with status updates from Saints fans angered by the NFL's move.
One crafty Twitter user created a shirt mocking the NFL on the Web site customink.com. In yellow lettering, the front of the black shirt reads: "Who exactly is it that states they are going to defeat the football team from New Orleans?" The back taunts: "Cease and desist this."
Patrick Henry Barthel, who has gone by the nickname "Dat'' for much of his life, including in his 2003 run for governor of Louisiana, struggled to understand how a corporation could claim to own a phrase it didn't create.
"In my opinion I don't see how you can take something that is New Orleans, that has been around since I can remember and call it your own," said Barthel, who half-jokingly worried that he might have to change his name and made sure to emphasize the term dat in his speech. "I'm Dat. That's my name. What's next? Are they going to tell me I can't be Dat anymore? They don't own dat phrase, or dat language or dat nation. It's not a phrase. It's a people. It's a community. It's the way we talk. For someone to say that dat language belongs to them, that's out the box."
Ron Swoboda, whose Monday night football show on WVUE is credited with introducing a Who Dat cheer to a large football audience in 1983, was equally puzzled.
"It amuses me because here you have a bunch of big powerful suits in the NFL and they're just going to take these little people to court who might be coming out with a product here and a product there that they're not going to get rich off of," Swoboda said. "Who Dat is something that came from the people here and in this particular instance, I think they're going to do a lot more public relations damage than they are going to do themselves monetary good."Trademark ownership in dispute
Determining who, if anyone, has an exclusive right to the phrase may prove to be just as difficult as figuring out its exact origins.
The New Orleans Louisiana Saints Limited Partnership registered the mark "Who Dat" with the secretary of state's office in April 1988, claiming that it had first used the phrase in November 1983. There are no details about how the Saints first used the term on file with the office, because that information is not required for registration.
The following month, the Saints Limited Partnership registered the mark "Who Dat" when used in conjunction with "fleur-de-lis design" with the secretary of state's office. The combination of elements was first used by the Saints organization on May 1, 1988, according to records, though again there is no specific example of such.
via www.nola.com
In a mad grab for licensing rights, the NFL is trying to squash New Orleans small businesses by claiming copyright on the "Who Dat" chant. Back off NFL, you make plenty off of the super bowl. You don't have to try to claim a saying that precedes you.
Most telling to me, the NFL never really cared about licensing issues with the Saints until they were superbowl bound.
