ESPN's Darren Rovell has a very interesting piece on Dale Earnhardt, Jr., who hasn't owned his name, or the rights to his own signature, for the past three years. Instead, his stepmother Teresa controls those rights. This peculiar outcome results from assorted agreements, including mere handshakes, between the late Dale Sr. and Dale Jr., as well as between Dale Earnhardt Incorporated (DEI, which represents Dale Sr.'s business interests) and JR Motorsports (Dale Jr.'s company for off-the-course business). It also results from Dale Sr. originally filing the trademark for Dale Jr.'s name, an act which Dale Jr. later consented to (and perhaps unknowingly). And when Dale Sr. died in 2001, the rights to Dale Jr.'s name were transferred to his Dale Sr.'s estate, the executor of which is Dale Jr.'s stepmom, Teresa.But now Dale Jr. wants his name back, because he is apparently not getting a full cut on every product that bears his name. Doing so may be difficult, however: Teresa wants to keep Dale Jr.'s name because it raises the value of Dale Sr.'s estate, and legally she may have the upper-hand. According to J. Scott Evans, a Charlotte attorney who has registered trademarks for a number of drivers, "it's hard to revoke your consent once you've given it. If Dale Jr. has a problem with it now, that's between him and DEI."
Interestingly, this isn't the first time that a NASCAR driver has encountered a trademark issue with his name. Take Geoff Bodine's name plight:
Geoff Bodine, the NASCAR driver who had 570 starts from 1979 to 2004, says he didn't own his own name for a long time. In the '80s, according to Bodine, a man successfully trademarked his name without his consent, then tried to blackmail him. It's one of the reasons Bodine sometimes was referred to as Geoffrey.There is a lot more to the story, including a discussion on how so many NASCAR drivers trademark their names. It is definitely worth checking out, as is Geoff's recent post on Charles Barkley's name trademark issues.
Update: Dale Jr. has reached an agreement with stepmom Teresa that gives him his name back. As my former civil procedure professor John Harrison would often say, you never like to see cases where the plaintiff and defendant share the same last name. It looks like we'll be avoiding that here.