Aaron Judge, ‘All Rise,’ and Common Law Trademark Rights Across Baseball and Judicial Imagery.

The article focuses on two recent legal developments in sports trademark and name, image, and likeness (NIL) law. First, it analyzes the Federal Circuit’s January 2026 decision affirming common-law trademark rights held by Major League Baseball Players Association (MLBPA) and Aaron Judge in the phrases “ALL RISE” and “HERE COMES THE JUDGE” as source identifiers for Judge’s licensed apparel, while questioning the scope of rights in judicial imagery alone without direct association to Judge. Second, it discusses a California federal court ruling in *Calhoun v. California Interscholastic Federation* preserving an antitrust challenge against CIF’s restrictions on high school athletes’ ability to monetize NIL tied to school affiliation, highlighting ongoing legal debates about athlete compensation beyond collegiate sports. Both cases illustrate evolving intersections of intellectual property and athlete rights within professional and amateur sports contexts. Extracted from the article