Louisiana company has Tiger Woods seeing red

In January 2024, Tiger Woods and Nike announced the end of a 27-year partnership. It didn’t take Woods long to announce that he was leveraging a long-standing equipment partnership with TaylorMade and expanding that relationship into a lifestyle clothing line called SUN DAY RED. Woods, thought by many to be the greatest golfer of our generation, is known for wearing a red polo shirt on championship Sunday. Woods was encouraged by his mother to wear red as a power color. After his car accident in 2023, while Woods was still recovering, pros playing on championship Sunday all wore red shirts to pay homage to Woods.

The SUN DAY RED branding has a logo design element consisting of a highly stylized tiger with 15 stripes, a nod to Woods’ 15 major championships. In July 2023, the SUN DAY RED word and logo marks were filed in Jamaica, and on January 18, 2024, three US applications were filed, claiming priority of the Jamaican national applications under the Madrid System. In February 2024, Woods announced his new partnership to the media and unveiled the new mark and logos. All the SUN DAY RED applications, including two logo marks, have all been examined by the USPTO without incidence, requiring only minor modifications to the description of goods and services.

A Louisiana company, however, tried and failed to get the USPTO to issue a substantive refusal of registration based on likely confusion with their Tiger logo mark (shown below). Tigeraire, according to their website, was founded in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, in the summer of 2020 with one objective: to “create a cooler and more comfortable environment inside the helmets of the newly minted NCAA Championship football team, the LSU [Louisiana State University] Tigers.” Tigeraire is clearly upset about Woods’ new SUN DAY RED Tiger logo, and they tried (and failed) to get the USPTO to issue a likelihood of confusion refusal without having to oppose. However, the Examiner did not agree since the TIGERAIRE scope of goods is very different from the SUN DAY RED scope of goods and services. In fact, Tigeraire exclusively operates in the football space – that’s what they say on their website, but their helmets could conceivably be worn in any sport. Golf doesn’t utilize helmets. Tigeraire was so convinced Woods’ logo was infringing on their logo that they opposed Woods’ two Tiger logo applications. A comparison of the two logos and their goods and services from USPTO records appears below:

TIGERAIRE

Goods: Air-conditioning, air cooling, and ventilation apparatus and instruments; electric fans; electric fans for personal use; wearable electric fans; portable electric fans

SUN DAY RED

Goods and services: Golf equipment; golf clothing; related clothing and accessories

In response, Woods filed a declaratory judgment action in the Central District of California, asking a federal judge to declare that there is no infringement between these two logos (and, in my opinion, there is not!). The complaint goes further – it alleges that Tigeraire “began attending golf tournaments, changed its website’s home page to prominently feature golfers, and frantically added apparel to its product offerings – all in a clear attempt to manufacture the appearance of overlap where none existed in the actual marketplace.” And then, after its unsuccessful attempts to block Woods’ applications at the USPTO, Tigeraire sent an outrageous monetary demand, hoping for a windfall.                                                                                                                           

Some of my esteemed colleagues believe Woods will settle this case. I am not among them. Woods has zero incentive to settle this matter. They say: “But, he will never get his marks if he doesn’t settle.” True. However, if the allegations in the federal complaint are remotely true, settling would be akin to giving in to the demands of a terrorist. I believe Woods will prevail in the declaratory judgment action, and he has nothing to lose by seeing this through to a decision. He is a competitor. There are nearly 800 tiger design logo marks actively registered on the USPTO register, and none of them look anything like the SUN DAY RED Logo. Tigeraire reached too far and poked not just a bear but a Tiger. I can’t wait to see what happens next!

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