Company withdraws attempt to trademark ’sabermetrics’

SABR says ’sabermetrics’ to stay in public domain

CLEVELAND — A company has withdrawn its application to trademark the term “sabermetrics” following opposition from the Society for American Baseball Research.

SABR announced its opposition last month to the application by Deep Focus Inc., and the two organizations issued a joint statement Monday saying the application was withdrawn Feb. 3.

“We now understand that there was no intent to restrict free use of the word, and we are glad that they respect that free use of the word benefits everyone,” SABR executive director John Zajc said.

SABR said “sabermetrics” was coined by statistician Bill James in 1980.

“The intent to use the term ’sabermetrics’ was solely to describe our approach to evaluating engagement within social media, and not to own the term outright. In no way did we mean to restrict others’ use of the word,” Deep Focus’ chief executive officer Ian Schafer said.