A former Jets employee is suing the team and the NFL for unspecified damages over the Jets’ use of a logo he designed.
Jim Pons filed a suit alleging he came up with the design in the late 70s while he was working for the Jets as the team’s film and video director, according to the lawsuit obtained by TMZ.
The logo in question is the one that features a jet plane above the letters “E-T-S” that the team used beginning in 1978 and was the AFC club’s primary logo up until 1997 when they changed course.
Pons claims in the suit, according to TMZ, that he owns the logo and that he came up with the design outside the scope of his job when he was employed with the team.
The suit asks for a judge to cancel the Jets’ trademark of the logo and Pons wants a ruling that prevents the football team from being able to use the design or sell merchandise with it on there without his consent or compensation.
“We are aware of the complaint,” the Jets said in a statement to The Post. “The mark in question has been registered with the United States Patent and Trademark Office for nearly 50 years. The mark has been used continuously in numerous iterations since that time. We find this claim baseless and without merit.”
The Jets began using that version of the logo in 2023 twice for that season and earlier this year they announced that they would be returning to the design full-time for the upcoming season.
Pons spent nearly three decades working for the Jets up until 2000 after starting with the team in 1973, he said in a promotional video he was featured in that had been released in April.
The eight-minute video features Pons narrating how he came up with the design and his experience working for the team.
“I thought it would be nice to just have the name and it kind of moving in a direction. And then I started fooling around with it and tilting the letters and then I thought a jet plane on the top of this would look pretty cool,” Pons said in the video about coming up with the design. “I fooled around with it for a few days and it started to come into fruition and it started to look pretty good. And I gave it to them and they liked it and they used it. They took it and the next thing I knew it was the logo.”
The Jets announced on April 15 that it would debut new jerseys and a return to the logo in a “nod to the Sack Exchange era.”
In the video released the following day, Pons said the team had alerted him that it was returning to the logo he designed and said that it made him feel “good” over the popularity of the design.
