Estimated read time: 4-5 minutes
- Smith Entertainment Group filed a lawsuit against Mammoth Hockey over a Utah Mammoth trademark dispute.
- The lawsuit claims Utah Mammoth's name doesn't infringe Mammoth Hockey's trademark rights.
- The team's owner is seeking a court ruling to support its claims.
SALT LAKE CITY — It appears the new name of Utah's NHL franchise has run into a bit of legal drama.
Smith Entertainment Group Hockey and Uyte, LLC, owners of the Utah Mammoth and the company that helped Smith throughout the trademark process, filed a lawsuit against the Oregon-based hockey equipment bag manufacturer Mammoth Hockey, LLC, in the U.S. District Court of Utah on Friday. The lawsuit claims the two sides have found themselves in a trademark tiff, and they'd like a court referee to break up the donnybrook.
"Utah Mammoth and the NHL believe strongly that we have the right to use the name Utah Mammoth under federal and state law, and that our use will not harm the defendant or its business in any way," Smith Entertainment Group officials said in a statement to KSL.com. "We have taken this action only after careful consideration based on the defendant's position."
Mammoth Hockey, the bag manufacturer, predates Utah's NHL team by a decade. It launched in 2014, following a successful campaign on the business crowdfunding site Kickstarter, and continues to produce large equipment bags primarily geared for hockey players of all skill levels.
The apparent dispute emerged sometime after Smith Entertainment Group announced in May that what was once the Utah Hockey Club would move forward as the Mammoth — one of the permanent options that emerged not long after the team relocated from Arizona in April 2024.
A little more than a month later, a lawyer for the Oregon company sent Smith Entertainment Group lawyers a letter, calling for an immediate cease and desist from promoting the team name. It and activities since its selection may "constitute trademark infringement, false advertising and unfair competition," according to the letter, which was included in court documents.
The company's concerns stem from its service mark, which is a mix of symbols, words or designs associated with a trademark. In this case, both sides were associated with "mammoth" and "hockey." They both have mammoth-shaped logos, which lawyers said could "confuse consumers" into thinking the two sides are connected in some way.
"Such confusion risks the appropriation of the mark's goodwill that Mammoth Hockey has built up in the mark for more than 10 years," the letter stated.
Smith Entertainment Group and Uyte wrote in the lawsuit that they deny that the team name violates the trademark, asserting that Utah Mammoth as a professional hockey team is "permissible." Lawyers representing the two Utah companies called the legal request a "surprise" in a response letter dated June 23, writing that the two logos and symbols are "different in appearance, sound and meaning."
"The parties' goods and services are also not competitive and are offered through disparate channels of trade," the response letter states.
It contained a screenshot of a Mammoth Hockey social media post, where the company circled the Utah Mammoth name option and wrote that it was "pretty partial to this one." The company's co-founder also sent a message to an employee of the hockey team in April, saying it would be "pretty cool" if the two sides collaborated, should the Mammoth name be selected, which was included in the court documents.
These show the company previously "voiced public support for the selection" of the team name before reversing course, the lawsuit says.
Mammoth Hockey lawyers wrote that the comments "mischaracterize the nature of those communications" in a second letter that was sent to Smith Entertainment Group the day before the lawsuit was filed. It reasserted that the two goods and services "are competitive" since they both "operate within the hockey ecosystem," and the Utah team name could lead to fans of other NHL teams not buying products from the Oregon company.
The letter also references similar challenges Utah Mammoth owners ran into, ending another team name option. Yeti or Yetis had emerged as the leading contender, but the United States Patent and Trademark Office refused the trademark request in January, citing a "likelihood of confusion" with the cooler brand Yeti.
Smith and Uyte filed the lawsuit a day later, calling the "uncertainty" created by Mammoth Hockey "intolerable," saying the Oregon company was aware of the potential name for almost a year without objecting to it.
The two plaintiffs are seeking a court ruling that the Utah Mammoth trademark — tied to the team's operations as an NHL franchise — is "fully compliant" with laws and doesn't violate the Mammoth Hockey trademark, which could settle the dispute.
It's unclear when the case will be sorted out in court, but records show Mammoth Hockey received a summons this week. The company's owners say they're prepared for the legal battle.
"Mammoth Hockey intends to vigorously defend the litigation recently commenced against it by Utah Mammoth of the National Hockey League and protect its longstanding trademark used in connection with the hockey goods it has manufactured and sold for the past 10 years," said Erik Olson, the company's co-founder, in a statement to KSL.com on Wednesday.
