DOCUMENT: Sports

Son Filed To Trademark Dying Slugger's Name

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Son Filed To Trademark Dying Slugger's Name

Just weeks before Ted Williams died, the baseball legend's controversial son filed an application to trademark his father's name for a variety of future business activities, The Smoking Gun has learned. On May 14, with the Splendid Splinter gravely ill, John Henry Williams filed an application to trademark "Ted Williams" on behalf of Ted Williams Family Enterprises. The requested trademark would cover the use of Williams's name on baseball bats, gloves, uniforms, and gear, and in connection with baseball camps and instructional material. The filing, now pending with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, lists Williams, 33, as president of Ted Williams Family Enterprises, which was incorporated in Massachusetts in mid-1993. But according to state records, the firm was formally dissolved in August 1998 by Massachusetts officials after the company failed to submit required annual reports. According to Brian McNiff, spokesman for the Secretary of the Commonwealth, the dissolution strips the Williams firm of "whatever general protections or legal position" the company had, rendering it "no longer a corporation." (8 pages)