SmashMouth

The contentious questions of who owns the term "Who Dat," if anyone can own it, and who can use the rallying call of New Orleans Saints fans for commercial purposes, has popped up again in federal court. A company called Who Dat?, Inc., which claimed to hold the trademark in previous disputes, has filed two fresh lawsuits against vendors selling "Who Dat" gear.

A case filed on Sept. 27 goes after the Decatur Street shops It's All About Me of New Orleans, Everything New Orleans and Mardi Gras Gift Shop. An Oct. 2 suit targets Blue World, another Decatur Street store in the French Quarter.

Language in the two lawsuits is nearly identical: "WDI hired an investigator to confirm defendants' sale of counterfeit and infringing goods. The investigator confirmed that defendants were selling, offering for sale, marketing and advertising products using the designations 'Who Dat,' 'Who Dat!,' and /or 'Who Dat?' in their stores. WDI hand delivered and/or mailed to each of the defendants a letter requesting them to cease and desist the infringing activity. Defendants refused to stop selling the counterfeit and infringing goods and continues to willfully infringe upon WDI's Who Dat marks."

In the lawsuits Who Dat?, Inc., says it owns the trademarks and sells, markets and licenses to others an array of products with the "Who Dat" name and started doing so in 1983. Followers of the previous scuffle over "Who Dat" might remember that this was the company that started with a recording of the song "When The Saints Go Marching In" that used the "Who Dat" chant and featured Saints players and Aaron Neville.

The company got into the legal fray in 2010 after the NFL raised the ire Saints fans during the run-up to the Saints' first Super Bowl victory by demanding that shopkeepers stop selling "Who Dat" related merchandise.

By 2012, however, the NFL and Who Dat?, Inc., settled their differences and allowed each other to keep marketing "Who Dat" products. Who Dat?, Inc., also settled with other vendors it was fighting in court.

The episode raised much discussion of the origins of the phrase suggesting it should be in the public domain and not ownable, including traces of it as far back as 1790, its appearance in an 1898 song "Who Dat Say Chicken In Dis Crowd" and its wide use as a cheer for football teams in African-American schools around New Orleans by the early 1970s and predominantly white schools by the late 1970s, before it became a Saints chant.

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