The UFL owns the rights to the name United Football League. It does not own the rights to the letters UFL.
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office turned down the league's application for UFL on June 4, 2026. The examiner said the letters are too close to three trademarks already owned by someone else. That someone is XTEN Limited, a company based in Cyprus.
The league filed a second application for UFL to put on merchandise and electronics. The Trademark Office turned that one down too. The league is appealing.
The long name is safe
XFL Properties, the company that owns the league's trademarks, holds a registered trademark for United Football League. It applied in November 2022 and the registration came through on April 23, 2024, less than a month after the league's first game. It covers pro football games and exhibition games.
So the league can call itself the United Football League. That part is settled.
The league also filed a second application for those same three words in October 2023. It cleared the examiner and is waiting on paperwork showing the name is in use. The league has not filed that paperwork yet and asked for extra time in April.
The short name is not
The letters are a different story. XFL Properties applied for UFL on October 10, 2023, covering football games, fan clubs, betting and TV production.
The Trademark Office put the application on hold at the end of 2024 while it sorted out two older applications from other companies. One of those went away. The other became a registered trademark, and it is now one of the three marks standing in the league's way.
The examiner's letter in June was blunt about it.
Registration of the applied-for mark is refused because of a likelihood of confusion with the marks in U.S. Registration Nos. 7463664, 7463665, and 7797373.
In plain terms: shoppers might mix up the two. All three of those trademarks belong to XTEN Limited.
The league asked for more time to respond and got it on September 3. It now has until December 4, 2026.
A company in Cyprus got there first
XTEN Limited is registered at an address in Cyprus. It owns two UFL trademarks that both went through in July 2024, and they cover a lot of ground.
The list includes baseball caps, hats, hooded sweatshirts, jackets, socks, sports jerseys and T-shirts. A company in Cyprus holds the U.S. rights to put UFL on a jersey.
A third XTEN trademark came through in May 2025 and covers video games and online games.
Two fights, both over
The two sides went after each other's trademarks and both landed a punch.
XTEN moved first in August 2023, targeting two older UFL trademarks the league had picked up. The league gave them up in May 2024. Both are dead now.
The league fired back in September 2024 and went after XTEN's two trademarks. It won, but only partly. The trademarks were trimmed, not killed. What was left was still enough for the examiner to point at eighteen months later.
The merchandise problem
The second application covers game recordings, streaming apps, stats databases, earbuds, headphones, chargers and speakers. It got a final rejection in February 2026.
On August 13 the league filed an appeal and asked the examiner to think again. Its argument is to narrow the paperwork so every item on the list says American football. The idea is that football gear and video games are different enough that nobody would confuse them.
What happens next
The league has until December 4 to answer on the football application. The merchandise appeal has no deadline attached to it.
A refusal is not a court order, and it does not by itself stop anyone from using a name. What it means is narrower. The league does not hold a federal trademark on UFL, and for now the Trademark Office is not willing to grant one.
Both applications went in on October 10, 2023, before the USFL and XFL announced they were merging that December. The league has played under the letters UFL since March 2024.