A couple of weeks ago, it came to some peoples’ attention, that some people were starting a US based Pancrase promotion. They are calling their promotion Pancrase Hybrid Wrestling and are using the same logo as the Japanese based promotion.
It has recently come to light that the US based promotion does not have permission from the Japanese based promotion and the Japanese based promotion has issued a response:
“Recently, it has been confirmed that a third party illegally uses the Pancrase trademark…”
Upon examination, I have found the following details.
On August 24, 2020, Blown Falcon Productions LLC of California, filed a trademark for the Pancrase Hybrid Wrestling Logo with the US Patent and Trademark Office., for usage primarily with clothing. The CEO of the company is Eric Nyenhuis, an actor, who was once associated with Ken Shamrock.
On December 19, 2020, the US Patent and Trademark Office sent notice to Blown Falcon Productions LLC that there registration of the trademark had been refused. The reason being that since the logo is exactly identical to the logo with Pancrase’s still active and registered trademark it is likely to cause confusion. More specifically:
“Because the marks are identical, and because the applicant’s and registrant’s goods and services are commonly provided by the same entities, travel through the same trade channels, and are similar or complementary in terms of purpose and function, registration is refused for a likelihood of confusion with the cited registration.”
Blown Falcon Productions LLC has 6 months to respond to all of the reasons for the refusal or the application will be deemed abandoned.
Blown Falcon responded with several pieces of evidence. One was a contract to make a documentary about Pancrase where Masami Ozaki agreed to loan trademark 75103037 in exchange for money earned by the film. This contract went into effect on August 29, 2020. Mazami Ozaki appears to have signed the contract on October 11, 2020. It is kind of interesting because the contract states that Ozaki agreed to loan the trademark for production of the Project, which is defined as a documentary based on the script known as Pancrase: Hybrid History. It is hard to see how holding martial arts events is related to the above mentioned project.
In part of their response, Blown Falcon wrote that World Pancrase Create, Inc and Blown Falcon are partners. This is interesting because it would seem that World Pancrase Create was not the owner of the logo or the trademark in 2020, when this contract was entered into. Pancrase was sold to Masakazu Sakai of Smash Co LTD in 2012. As part of the sale, Sakai acquired all of Pancrase’s trademarks in Japan and abroad, which includes the U.S. If this is the case, it would appear that Ozaki did not have a trademark to loan to Blown Falcon.
In addition, if the contract is valid, it seems strange that Blown Falcon would register a trademark that has been “loaned” to them. No where in the contract does it state that the contract is being sold or permanently transferred to them.
With Sakai now aware of the registration attempt, it will be interesting to see how the story proceeds. We will post any updates as they come.
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