Brand Name Rights to be Decided by Courts - Who is CR7 in the USA?

Posted Saturday, August 02, 2014 by Marca.com

Who is the real CR7 in the United States? In the past few days the American press have been reporting on a dispute over the rights to this trademark which has ended up in court. Ronaldo patented the name in Europe to sell his own brand of underwear, but on moving into the US market he discovered that there is already a CR7 clothes brand operating there.

The man behind this brand is Christopher Renzi, a 43-year-old American who lives in Rhode Island. He says he registered the name as it consists of his initials plus the number of the day when his birthday falls. He now finds himself on the receiving end of a lawsuit from the Danish company JBS, who want to introduce the Ronaldo make of underwear into the United States, and they have asked Renzi to change the name of his brand.

"We just want them to leave us alone", says Michael Feldhuhn, Renzi's lawyer. Renzi registered the CR7 name in 2009 to market his range of jeans and T-shirts. He has also developed a series of 7-minute fitness exercises which come under the CR7 brand. "Cristiano Ronaldo might be the most famous CR7 in the world but this is all about who used the brand name first. And we can prove that we were the first to use the name CR7 in the United States", Feldhuhn added.