Oct 5, 2011 0
Judge knows his Ravens’ history… for the most part
U.S. District Court Senior Judge Marvin J. Garbis gave no indication whether he would allow Ravens’ “Flying B” logo designer Frederick E. Bouchat to add the makers of the Madden NFL 11 video game to his copyright infringement suit against the team and the NFL in a hearing Tuesday.
But Garbis, a lifelong Baltimorean and football fan, did display solid knowledge of Ravens’ history, except for one minor slip-up.
The hearing also focused on the use of Bouchat’s logo in Ravens’ highlights films from 1996-1998 and whether the NFL can continue to sell the films without compensating Bouchat.
Garbis, born in Baltimore in 1936 and a graduate of Johns Hopkins according to his bio, pointed out that the focus of the films ”is not to show the logo. It’s to show Ray Lewis.”
Touchdown for Garbis on that one. Lewis was one of the original Ravens after the team took him and Jonathan Ogden in the first round of the 1996 NFL Draft (pretty savvy selecting by the front office). Lewis led the team in tackles as a rookie in 1996 and made the Pro Bowl in 1997 and 1998, so he certainly would have been a focus of the highlight films in question.
The NFL’s attorneys argued that the market for the films at this point is minimal and Garbis seemed to agree, saying they’d only appeal to people who “wanted to relive the good old days. Which for us were actually the bad old days.”

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As the clock wound down in the countdown to NFL free agency late Thursday afternoon, Ray Lewis’ agent Ira Rainess told a group of law students his client’s ties to Baltimore went deeper than a football contract.
I’ve written before about how sports are not recession-proof. But the topic was brought home by
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