AEW files to trademark ‘King of Harts’

AEW is taking a second crack at trademarking a nickname previously used by Owen Hart.

After Hart won the 1994 WWE King of the Ring, he declared himself the “King of Harts.” According to records available on the US Patent and Trademark Office website, AEW filed to trademark the name on October 1. It is their second time attempting to do so.

AEW originally filed to trademark the name in 2021, just a few months before the company would announce a partnership with Martha Hart. AEW wanted to use it for the name of the Owen Hart Cup. However, they were blocked from doing so.

This was addressed by our Dave Meltzer in the September 27, 2021 edition of The Wrestling Observer Newsletter.

“AEW had attempted to name the Cup the King of Harts, but has been blocked from using that name,” Meltzer wrote.

Meltzer continued to write of AEW’s deal with Martha Hart:

“This deal was two years in the making, largely stemming from Chris Jericho and Martha Hart working together on the Dark Side show and her doing his podcast. Jericho grew up watching Stampede Wrestling, which was on TSN in Canada when he was in high school and he was a big fan of the show and Hart was one of his favorite wrestlers growing up and a major influence because guys like him, Dynamite Kid and Ricky Steamboat were his size or smaller and made it in wrestling.”

There are some differences between AEW’s filing in 2021 and the most recent application. The 2024 filing has only listed purposes of “Shirts; Tank tops; T-shirts” whereas the 2021 filing included all of the below-intended purposes and more:

“Educational and entertainment services, namely, a continuing program about wrestling accessible by radio, television, satellite, audio, video and computer networks; Entertainment services in the nature of development, creation, production, distribution, and post-production of wrestling programs and wrestling multimedia entertainment event content; Entertainment services in the nature of live wrestling performances; Entertainment services in the nature of production of wrestling programs and wrestling multimedia entertainment event content”