World Series Cricket brand name caught in bizarre international legal battle

Nearly 50 years since the Kerry Packer-led cricket revolution, World Series Cricket is making international headlines once again – this time with a bizarre legal battle stemming from the USA.

A Los Angeles-based trademark lawyer has refused to be drawn on his mysterious client’s bid to register the iconic World Series Cricket name in Australia.

Almost half a century from the Kerry Packer-led cricket revolution, the World Series Cricket (WSC) name is again at the centre of a continent-crossing legal stoush.

The parties behind a smartphone app called World Series Cricket are seeking a trademark for the World Series Cricket name in Australia.

A Government trademark search shows that an adverse report was made on the attempt earlier this year, indicating that the trademark is at face value unsuitable for registration and needs to be amended or clarified before being accepted.

The app constraints live cricket scores, news and highlights and is freely available.

Pakistani batsman Zaheer Abbas hits a ball from Viv Richards in the 1981 World Series Cricket.

The registration attempt can be linked to an organisation called World Series Cricket Inc. Just who is behind the company is unclear, with the only traceable point of contact being Kia Kamran, a trademark and entertainment lawyer based in California.

A representative from Kamran’s office told this masthead that Kamran did not have authority to comment publicly on the situation.

In a further twist, World Series Cricket Inc is subject to a separate legal challenge in the US from Major League Baseball, with the Office of the Commissioner of Baseball contesting the name via the United States patent and trademark office.

The World Series Cricket Inc claim explicitly distances itself from any reference to baseball.

“Downloadable software in the nature of a mobile application for streaming and accessing audio and video content, news, and information in the field of cricket; all of the foregoing not relating to baseball or softball or to a baseball or softball team, baseball or softball league, baseball or softball mascot or baseball or softball stadium,” the submission states.

Australian cricket captain Greg Chappell holding the World Series Cup in 1981. Picture: Getty

Cricket Australia sought to register the WSC name in 2015 but the attempt lapsed in 2017 according to a search of the Australian trademark database.

Packer’s breakaway WSC changed the course of cricket when launched in 1977 – with some of the biggest names in the sport involved, including Australians Dennis Lillee and Ian and Greg Chappell, West Indies stars Viv Richards, Clive Lloyd and Michael Holding, England’s Tony Greig, champion New Zealand all-rounder Richard Hadlee and Pakistan’s Imran Khan.

After two years of schism, Packer and the Australian Cricket Board reached a truce. For the best part of the next decade, the annual summer one-day international tri-series involving the Aussies and two touring sides was known as the World Series Cup.

The Nine Network still owns the trademark to the traditional WSC logo of a red ball atop three black stumps.

Originally published as World Series Cricket brand name caught in bizarre international legal battle