A former Jets employee is suing the team and the NFL for using a logo he designed. The amount of the damages is not specified.
Jim Pons filed the lawsuit, claiming he came up with the design in the late 70s while working for the Jets as the team’s film and video director. According to the lawsuit obtained by TMZ.
The logo in question is a jet over the letters “ETS” which the team began using in 1978 and was the primary logo of the AFC club until it changed its route in 1997.
According to TMZ, Ponce claims in the lawsuit that he owns the logo and that he came up with the design outside the scope of his job duties while working for the team.
The lawsuit asks the judge to nullify the Jets’ trademark on the logo, and Ponce wants a ruling that would prevent the football team from using the design or selling merchandise featuring the logo without his consent or compensation.
“We are aware of the complaint,” Jetz said in a statement to the Post. “The mark in question has been registered with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for nearly 50 years. The mark has been in use in numerous iterations since then. We believe the allegations are baseless and without merit.”
The Jets began using this version of the logo twice during the 2023 season, and announced earlier this year that they would be fully committed to the design starting this upcoming season.
In a promotional video released in April, Ponce said he worked for the Jets for nearly 30 years, from 1973 to 2000.
The eight-minute video explains how Ponce came up with the design and what he learned from working on the team.
“I just thought it would be cool to have a name, and it seemed to be moving in a certain direction. And then I played around with it and angled the letters, and I thought it would be pretty cool to have a jet on top of it,” Pons says in a video about coming up with the design. “I played around with it for a couple days, and it started coming to fruition, and it started looking pretty good. And I gave it to them, and they liked it, and they used it. They took it, and the next thing I know, it was a logo.”
The Jets announced on April 15 that they would be debuting new uniforms and reviving their logo as a “homage to the Sack Exchange era.”
In a video released the following day, Pons announced that the team would be returning to a logo he designed, and said he was “pleased” with the design’s popularity.
