A New Jersey 10-and-under hockey league suspended children because their mothers made custom jackets that included the logo of the team, the Hitmen. The four mothers had posed wearing the jacket, which was designed to say “HITMAMA,” in an Instagram photo, that was later deleted though remained up long enough to be noticed by the team owner.

  • The owner, Bobby Reiss, responded by sending an email to the parents of all the players, which was later made public.
  • In the email, the owner claimed that the logo included on their jackets was a federally registered trademark, and by including it they had violated the contract they signed upon their children joining the team.
  • It also demanded the parents who made the jackets pay 15% royalties as restitution.


“These trademarks are federally registered and any transgressions over the years have been dealt with by our law firm,” the letter reads. “All of you know that we have the most comprehensive team apparel of any youth organization in the country. We take great pride in what we produce and are very protective of our rights.”

Whether Reiss’ talk of past legal dealings is based in truth is up for speculation, but in his personal dispute with the parents, he managed to play the card most clearly at his disposal, even if it came at the misfortune of children ages 10 and under. There is perhaps an argument to be made that Reiss is not being a particularly graceful steward of youth sports, which one might hope concerns itself primarily with ideals other than maximizing profit. That argument, however, is separate from the one that can be made regarding trademark infringement, which, if clearly violated, does protect the rights owner, no matter what the optics may look like.

Branded Merch Perspective

Having gone public, critics of Reiss will likely suggest that he is trying to guarantee that any parents of players supporting their children by wearing branded merch can only do so if they if they pay the team that they are already paying to have the children compete on, and they might argue that punishing the children themselves is a step too far.

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Independent of the latter part of that argument, the fact is that trade trademark and copyright laws are designed in some part to allow trademark owners to execute the initial part of that same argument, even if it seems petty or unfair in some cases.

  • Trademarks, copyrights and patents are designed to distinguish one’s products or services from another’s.
  • Those protections enable customers to know what they can expect, ultimately building brand loyalty.


Assuming that Reiss’ claims are all accurate, it is not necessarily that the four mothers did something wrong, despite his accusatory tone toward them. But a supplier or manufacturer was presumably paid for the jackets, and that third party did not have permission to make profit off the team branding.

There’s a better-safe-than-sorry approach that many veterans of the branded merch industry would advise. Although the need to protect IP isn’t called into play until someone infringes on it, suppliers, distributors, decorators and business service providers should keep an eye on the market to remain vigilant. It should be noted that doesn’t necessitate similar actions as Reiss has taken, but it does keep options open when trading conflicts arise.

“If you wait to file, you may waive your rights or limit the remedies,” said Justin Miller, Esq., a patent attorney with Larson & Larson, at the 2019 PPAI Product Responsibility Summit.

  • In a landmark legal victory for the promo industry in 2018, a federal court jury ruled in favor of ETS Express after the supplier was sued for alleged trademark infringement by Can’t Live Without It, LLC, dba S’well Bottle.


Conversely, you don’t want to infringe upon someone else’s IP when creating or designing products. When accepting an order, distributors should avoid the obvious such as Disney, Star Wars, Marvel characters and the like, as well as famous landmarks, slogans, logos, likenesses of celebrities and photos and art of unknown origin.

“Fair use laws remain extremely gray, and companies incorporating copyrighted assets into their work should be aware that the case-by-case and context-sensitive evaluation lends itself to much subjective speculation about how a court of law, i.e., a judge or a panel of judges, may apply an objective analysis in determining whether a use of a copyrighted work is fair and thus non-infringing,” wrote Halliburton in a 2023 commentary on the Copyright Act’s ‘fair use’ doctrine