This has happened in a number of comps around the world. Union have absolutely no respect for us, we do nothing about it. We are not allowed to be called just rugby, they are allowed to have comps called rugby league.
The IRB trademarks 'rugby' wherever and whenever they can, they own the .rugby TLD, etc.
Helps them when they appeal to governments to try and ban RL comps.
I was talking about this in the other thread on 'RL branding' and kept getting shot down....
The fact is neither the ARLC nor the RLIF have ownership of any of the sports branding titles (which is exactly what happens when you name yourself after another sport). This is the kind of disrespect and disregard that RL will always have to deal with as long as it lets someone else (RU) control its brand. RL has no legal right to challenge this NRFL and it doesnt have the necessary international recognition to withstand these kinds of branding "landgrabs".
This is exactly why i think RL should differentiate and solidify the sports core image. There is no real benefit to hanging onto "rugby" and its only doing the game harm (the only reason they used that name to begin with was because their goal was to overthrow the MRU, not create a new sport).
Im assuming that you can't trademark the name 'League' or 'National' individually and the name 'Rugby' has already been trademarked by World Rugby.
So they would have trademarked the total term National Rugby League
That may work, but trademarks dont last unless you use them. So unless we are going to call the sport "NRL" everywhere, it wont do any good...
