The Athletics are still on track to move to Las Vegas, but their new name is already running into trouble, before the team even packs its bags.

As the franchise prepares for its eventual relocation, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has denied the team’s attempts to trademark “Las Vegas Athletics” and “Vegas Athletics.” The most recent refusal, issued Dec. 29, marks the second time the USPTO has said no. While it doesn’t threaten the move itself, it does expose a strange wrinkle in trademark law: even one of MLB’s oldest franchises can’t simply take its brand protections with it when changing cities.

The issue comes down to geography. According to trademark experts, the USPTO considers “Las Vegas Athletics” to be “primarily geographically descriptive” a well-known place name paired with a generic sports term. Granting exclusive rights to that phrase, the agency argues, could unfairly block other athletic organizations in Las Vegas from using common language to describe what they do.

Trademark attorney Josh Gerben summed it up bluntly: the examiner is taking the name very literally. If the A’s owned the phrase outright, even a youth or amateur athletics group in Las Vegas could theoretically run into trademark trouble. Weird? Yes. Unusual? Not really.

Complicating matters further is the fact that the A’s don’t actually play in Las Vegas yet. With the team temporarily in Sacramento and a Vegas debut not expected until 2028, the franchise can’t prove that fans already associate “Las Vegas Athletics” with a single team. In trademark law, that proof is known as “acquired distinctiveness” a key requirement for overcoming a geographic descriptiveness refusal.

The A’s have tried to lean on history, pointing to prior trademarks like “Oakland Athletics,” “Kansas City Athletics,” and “Philadelphia Athletics.” But trademark applications don’t work like court cases. Each one is judged independently, and past approvals don’t automatically carry over. In other words, the Oakland Athletics trademark doesn’t just magically transfer to Las Vegas.

Experts say the door isn’t closed. The USPTO’s refusal is non-final, meaning the team will get another chance to respond. Once the A’s begin using the name in Las Vegas, they could present evidence such as merchandise sales, advertising, media coverage, and consumer recognition to show the name has acquired distinctiveness.

If that still doesn’t work, the legal ladder goes up, from the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board all the way to federal court, and theoretically even the Supreme Court. But that route would be long, expensive, and unnecessary if time and use do the trick.

For now, the simplest solution may be patience. The A’s can keep their applications alive, start playing in Vegas, and let familiarity do the heavy lifting. After all, in baseball, as in trademark law, sometimes you just have to wait for the right pitch.