Deadspin, being Deadspin, wondered if anyone from the Cleveland Indians had done a simple Google search for "Cleveland Guardians."

Conduct Detrimental, a website that says it's "THE Intersection of Sports & Law," has a sports attorney who has been hammering the baseball club on Twitter. (The website hasn't been all that kind, either.)

Contrary to what the internet might tell you, though, the Indians were well aware that there was a Cleveland Guardians roller derby team. Yes, the baseball team also knew about the amateur club's website.

As we noted in a recent Crain's print story that detailed the complex process behind the selection of Guardians, multiple Indians sources have said the club was "very confident" that there wouldn't be any serious roadblocks in moving ahead with the team name. Once the club's legal team signed off on the name, the Indians wanted to announce it on their "own terms," which they did on July 23.

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Three of the key people leading the process for the Indians—president of business operations Brian Barren, senior vice president of marketing and strategy Alex King, and director of brand management Jason Wiedemann—spent more than 50 years working in consumer goods before joining the Tribe. Trademarks, Barren said, are "very complex" and "are a really big deal" in the consumer goods industry.

The group leading the name change process, plus the Tribe's legal team, wouldn't have gone forward with the announcement if they weren't certain that they had done everything necessary, sources told Crain's.

So is the baseball team in the clear?

Let's look at some of the details ...

The Indians' first trademark application for Cleveland Guardians occurred on April 8. The Indians did so in Mauritius, an island nation off the east coast of Africa—a move that established an early priority date and kept the name selection under wraps.

The baseball club also filed an application with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on July 23—the same day they unveiled the Guardians name and branding. Four days later, the roller derby team filed its own trademark application.

"So they actually have priority," Marsha Gentner, a senior counsel in Dykema's Intellectual Property Group, said of the Indians.

Gentner, whose practice at the national law firm is focused on the management of global trademark portfolios, said that "in the examination phase, the trademark office just looks at filing date."

"The trademark office, the examiner, isn't allowed to sort out issues of priority," she added. "That has to happen through either litigation or a proceeding before the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board."

The Cleveland Guardians haven't competed in men's roller derby since 2018. That year, according to the club's website, the Guardians had a schedule that ran until Sept. 1.

The club, until the baseball team's announcement, hadn't seemed to be very active. But on July 24, the day after the Indians rolled out their new name and branding, the roller derby team said it was "now recruiting for the 2022 season."

On Tuesday, Aug. 3, the roller derby club launched its Cleveland Guardians store. The digital shop has four T-shirt options—two each for men and women—available for purchase.

In an article for Sportico, Michael McCann, the founding director of the Sports and Entertainment Law Institute at the University of New Hampshire, wrote that the roller derby team, on a "first-to-use" the trademark basis, has a "decisive advantage."

But the Indians filing ahead of the Guardians "does supply a tactical advantage," McCann wrote.

Gentner, the Dykema trademark specialist, wonders if the Guardians' period of inactivity—one that could have spanned almost three years—will be used against the club.

"In the trademark world, if you abandon a mark, then you lose your rights and you lose your place in line," Gentner told Crain's. "And under the federal trademark statute, if you cease using the mark for a three-year period, at least a three-year period, there's a presumption of abandonment."

The attorney added that "the presumption is overcome if you can prove there wasn't an intent to abandon the mark. But it takes more than saying, 'Oh yeah, I always wanted to use it.' You have to put some evidence in."

And COVID-19 likely wouldn't be an excuse, Gentner said, because the team, according to its website, didn't play in 2019 and didn't make any mention of a 2020 season prior to the pandemic.

Alexandra Roberts, a trademark law expert at the University of New Hampshire Franklin Pierce School of Law, told Sportico that it wasn't clear there "is an actual trademarks conflict" between the baseball team and the roller derby club.

The roller derby club, however, could pose a problem for the Indians, Roberts added, because it's also part of the sports entertainment space and it now has sports apparel.

Gentner noted that a lot of teams share the same name.

"So they would also have to prove likelihood of confusion, and I would think that might be difficult, although they could possibly have a 'reverse confusion,' " the attorney said of the roller derby team. "The usual confusion case is a board infringement. The big guy says the little guy is trying to trade off of me. A reverse confusion is the little guy says the big guy came in and he's swamping me so much I'm going to lose all my value that I've built up for my little business in the market."

Those cases, she added, "can be a little different and a little more capable of proving the damages claim."

Gentner predicts that the Indians are "just gonna go full steam ahead and litigate if they have to against these guys."

Her guess is that the two clubs are engaged in discussions about the dueling trademark claims, and she's relatively certain of the outcome.

"Is this little roller derby team going to take on federal trademark infringement litigation? You're spending heavy six figures before you blink an eye," Gentner said.

In MLB, the Indians often characterize themselves as a small-market team fighting against big-market giants that have nearly unlimited resources. In this case, they're playing the role of Goliath.

The Indians' front office, though, is too level-headed to adopt a "smash all comers" stance. Our guess is there will be a peaceful resolution that avoids any drawn-out legal drama.

And yes, they knew about the roller derby team long before they unveiled their new look.

"It was laughable to me that somebody said they missed the domain name," Gentner said. "How could they not check the domain name? Believe you me, it was the first thing they checked."

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