Casino operator Caesars Entertainment Corporation has applied for trademark protection in Macau, despite its lack of any gaming operations in the special administrative region of China.
On Wednesday, Macau’s Official Gazette announced that two Caesars subsidiaries – Flamingo Las Vegas Operating Company LLC and Corner Investment Company LLC – had applied for trademark protection of The Cromwell and Flamingo brands. The names currently adorn two of Caesars’ Las Vegas properties.
The filings, which were made in early June, seek trademark protection for operations spanning casino services, casino management, gaming services, interactive gaming and hotel operations, to name just a few.
This isn’t the first time that Caesars has sought trademark protection in Macau, having filed to protect the Caesars and Caesars Palace brands in the summer of 2017. It should be noted that brands associated with US President Donald Trump filed similar brand protection applications around the same time.
Caesars is not among the three Western casino operators that have put down gaming roots in Macau, as Caesars infamously opted not to apply for a local concession based on the belief by the company’s then management that there was no profit in it. (Shades of those record company execs who passed on the Beatles.)
The most likely explanation for Caesars’ ongoing efforts to safeguard its brands in Macau is the faint hope that the SAR’s upcoming casino concession renewal process will include opportunities for new operators to enter the world’s biggest casino market.
There’s also the possibility that Caesars is looking to safeguard its brands against their unauthorized use by Asian-facing online gambling operators. Wynn Macau’s most recent annual report referenced the danger to its brand via such gambling sites and Las Vegas Sands has even sued brand-poachers, albeit without much in the way of tangible rewards.
In 2012, Caesars suffered an embarrassing setback after it lost a legal squabble with a Thai rub-and-tug massage parlor that had the foresight to register the Caesarsentertainment.com domain before Caesars thought to do so.
