BS Detector: Manchester United can't announce Jose Mourinho because Chelsea own his name

The Sun claimed on Wednesday afternoon that the delay in Jose Mourinho's official unveiling as Manchester United manager is "because former club Chelsea still own the rights to his name".

You're absolutely correct. The Sun's fatuous - albeit clicky - headline claims that Chelsea own the "copyright" to Mourinho's name. But it's a well-established matter of law that names are neither unique enough nor substantial enough to be copyrighted. This firm of lawyers has a fine explanation as to why not.

Not necessarily utter rubbish. The Sun claim to have unearthed the 'ownership' of the intellectual property rights to Mourinho's name on the EU Intellectual Property Office website.

** Splutter ** Er, no. Though no doubt The Sun want to push it that way. The thing is, the as the UK government website explains clearly, the EU IPO is for people within the EU wishing to protect trademarks elsewhere in the EU, rather than in their own country.

Look, we're sports journalists, not IPO lawyers. But the simple fact is that names can't be copyrighted - and The Sun's suggestion that they can be is utter hogwash. You can get trademark protection for names, but that's a rather different - and far less powerful - legal process, and according to the EU IPO listing the trademark was about using Mourinho's name on clothes and aftershave and whatnot. Plus, there's one utterly giant, enormous, glaring reason why this is all nonsense.

The Sun's story carries screenshots of the EU IPO website that lists the filing date for Chelsea's registration - and it dates back to 2005, during the Portuguese's first stint. You might have spotted that since then, Mourinho was successfully named manager of both Inter Milan and Real Madrid without sparking an international legal incident.

Indeed. There might be some legal wrangling about rights to use Mourinho's signature on watches, but if Real Madrid pressed ahead without buying the EU IPO registration off Chelsea then you can bet your life United can too.

Again, we're not about to claim specialist legal knowledge, or inside information about proceedings in the (metaphorically) smoke-filled rooms where the Mourinho deal is being finalised. But this very much looks like a case of 2+2=583: an old piece of legal stuff dredged up by a bored journalist with almost nothing to do before the Euros start, and an editor breathing down his neck to find a fresh angle...

Copyright expired.