American Needle Case Study

The use of business entities has helped to create the market structure that we have come to know in the economy today. The ability to compete in a market that is free, fair and competitive. However, there are certain entities that others may deem to have an unfair advantage, using structures to monopolize or crowd a market. The use have intellectual property have become a part of protecting ones business however in the case of American Needle vs. the National Football League it highlighted the use of business entities and how structures in particular markets could benefit over another using certain business structure types. The National Football League that consists of thirty two separately owned teams conceded in a joint venture to as part of the National Football League Properties to grant rights to companies that would produce licensed team NFL items. In December of 2000 it granted Reebok international the right to solely trademark and produce headwear on behalf of all the teams in the league. American Needle who previously also held license with the National Football League Properties lost the right to create exclusive headgear for any of the team in the NFL under the Reebok agreement.

They argue the National Football League Properties could not act as one body as they consisted of thirty two individual teams that acted as separate businesses. American Needle argues that each individual team should be able to make individual deals with companies for trademarked merchandise as the team names, logos and uniform designs are registered trademarks of each team. The NFL Properties argues that each team made a joint business decision to be a part of the license agreement and such can set the standard of how they would like to see merchandise produced and by whom. It was argued in front of the United States Supreme Court on January 13,