A man who claims to be a “direct descendant of the Kings of France” has lost his legal bid to wrest control of the fleur-de-lis symbol from the New Orleans Saints, after a US appeals court found he had no standing to challenge the team’s decades-old trademark.
Michel J Messier of Rutland, Vermont, argued that his family held intellectual property rights to the fleur-de-lis due to their alleged royal lineage, citing ancestral ties to the monarchs of France, Scotland, Aragon, and Castille. The NFL franchise, which has used the stylized lily symbol since its inception in 1967, registered the trademark in 1974 for use in professional football entertainment.
