Does an affiliate need to get permission from the state affiliate to run a tournament with the state name?
More specifics would be helpful, like the exact name you have in mind.
Would potential entrants think they were playing for a state championship title?
Is there an existing event that uses the same or a similar title, that might confuse people into thinking your event is that existing event?
You might get away with a Northeastern Ohio Open or a Cincinnati Open, but using Ohio Open would likely need the state affiliate’s blessing.
I do not see any rules saying that I can’t use Ohio Open. It is an odd subject that someone brought to my attention.
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Legally, you might be allowed to call an event the Ohio Open, as it is unlikely that someone has trademarked or otherwise protected that name. But if you were someone who had a long-running annual event and someone came in and tried to hold an event with the same name, would you be happy about it?
Are there so many active chess players near you that you can afford to annoy players, directors and organizers?
Over the years we’ve had several cases of organizers competing with each other by scheduling competing events or events that were named similar to someone else’s event. In most cases, both organizers suffered.
There are no rules in the rulebook addressing this situation. There might be some US Chess policy. You may want to contact the office about that.
Article VIII of the US Chess Bylaws deals with state affiliates and other affiliates. In addition, Delegates Action of Continuing Interest (DACI) 1991-27 further defines a state affiliate’s roles. Both documents can be found from the home page → About → Governance page. The Bylaws are in the 2022 Delegates Call link while the DACI’s are located in a link at the bottom of the ‘Information for Delegates’ link.
Note that the States and Affiliates Committee offered a 2022 Delegates Motion (ADM22-26) that was a substitute for ADM22-14 to revise Article VIII to better codify the roles. That motion passed but is under legal review before being published in the Bylaws. As a member of said committee, I have not heard word on the results or process of the legal review process. The committee plans further work in this area this year.
Recently I received an e-amil from a former US Chess office employee, Eric Johnson:
Back in the 90s…the office enforced a TLA policy that included
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State names (Ohio Open) or State Championships (Vermont Championship) needed permission of the state affiliate. No permission = no TLA.
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National Championships were under office control (obviously) – thus the words US, United States, National or anything similar were off-limits
Note that some folks started using WORLD or UNIVERSE instead.
Of course this was back in a time when an administrator actually saw and posted all the TLAs for the magazine.
With automation – and brain drain – I hope this policy has not been forgotten or changed.
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Thank you, Tim Lust. I believe you are correct on the TLA portion. I do not see anywhere that says that you can not use the state name without a TLA and needing approval. This was a question initially brought to me by a friend. I have seen tournaments with state names without TLA to promote the event.
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This is not official policy, but I suspect as long as the name and other pre-event publicity doesn’t lead people to mistakenly conclude that the event is offering a recognized state championship, issues regarding conflict of names are probably best resolved between organizers.
It probably wouldn’t be a good idea to have two ‘Ohio Opens’, for example, but slightly different names could help differentiate them. For example, having events with names of ‘Ohio Open Championship’ and ‘Ohio Fall Open’ is less likely to confuse someone as to which event is which. I think most people would understand that the former offers a recognized state championship title.
Some organizers may have sought trademarks or other legal ownership status for their events, which changes things.
There can even be different groups each feeling they can legitimately authorize a state championship while ignoring the authority the other group might have.
The Illinois Chess Association (ICA - state affiliate for US Chess) authorizes the IL elementary and middle school chess championship.
The Illinois Elementary School Association (IESA - state body overseeing elementary and middle school competitions) authorizes and runs the IL middle school chess championship.
The ICA championship is a tougher competition and is open to all students while the IESA event is only open to the minority of schools that are members of the IESA (a few years back that was about 20% of the Elementary and Middle schools - a very different percentage from the 98%+ of high schools that are members of the IHSA).
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