On February 16, American Needle Inc. reached an agreement in
principle with the National Football League to settle its claims. A
settlement between the parties would mark the end of an antitrust
litigation that has been pending since 2004.
From the 1960s through the late 1990s, the NFL's
intellectual property association—the National Football
League Properties ("NFLP")—had granted
non-exclusive licenses to apparel vendors, including American
Needle. American Needle brought suit after the NFLP gave Reebok an
exclusive license to manufacture trademarked headwear for all 32
NFL teams in 2000.
The NFL suffered several setbacks during the course of the
litigation. Most notably, in 2010, the Supreme Court reversed the grant of summary
judgment to the NFL, finding that the NFL was not operating as a
single entity with respect to its intellectual property rights for
purposes of Section 1. Based on that ruling, the Supreme Court held
that the NFL's licensing activities were
