The number 1587 means something very different depending on who you ask. To a small sneaker company founded by two Asian American entrepreneurs, it represents 1587 AD, the year Filipino sailors first arrived in what is now the United States. To Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce, it’s a jersey number combination: Mahomes wears 15, Kelce wears 87. Both sides built businesses around that number. Now a federal judge will have to sort out what happens when they collide.
On February 17, 2026, 1587 Sneakers, Inc. filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York against Mahomes, Kelce, and their Kansas City steakhouse, 1587 Prime. The complaint asserts trademark infringement, unfair trade practices, and unfair competition. The case, assigned to U.S. District Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald, carries Case No. 1:2026cv01337.
1587 Sneakers launched in April 2023 as the first Asian American-owned sneaker brand. Founders Adam King and Sam Hyun built the company around the historical significance of that number and appeared on Shark Tank. Actor Daniel Dae Kim later made a separate private equity investment in the brand. The restaurant opened September 17, 2025, inside the Loews Hotel Kansas City. At roughly 10,000 square feet across two floors, it’s a high-profile hospitality venture backed by Noble 33, a national restaurant group.
After the steakhouse opened, a large number of consumers contacted 1587 Sneakers asking whether the company was affiliated with the restaurant. That consumer confusion is now exhibit evidence. The lawsuit seeks to stop the restaurant from using the 1587 name, halt branded merchandise sales, and recover punitive damages. At its core, the case raises a question that matters beyond these two parties: how much trademark protection does a numeric mark actually carry when the same number carries meaning in completely separate industries?
Common Law Rights Against a Celebrity Brand Machine
The timeline here tells a complicated story. 1587 Prime filed its trademark application in December 2023, covering “bar and restaurant” services, nearly two years before the restaurant opened. 1587 Sneakers didn’t file its own federal application until October 30, 2025, roughly six weeks after the steakhouse had already opened its doors. That application is still pending.
Without federal registration, the sneaker brand relies on common law trademark rights, which flow from actual commercial use rather than USPTO paperwork. The company has been selling under the 1587 name since April 2023, giving it a common law priority date that predates both the restaurant’s filing and its opening. But common law rights are geographically limited. The question is whether a small sneaker brand had enough commercial presence in the Kansas City market to assert priority there.
Trademark infringement turns on whether consumers are likely to confuse the two marks. Courts weigh factors including the similarity of the marks, how closely related the goods and services are, the strength of the senior mark, and evidence of actual consumer confusion. The threshold question is whether you can actually trademark a number in the first place. You can, but numeric marks are inherently weaker than invented words because they carry pre-existing meanings. Trademark attorney Josh Gerben publicly called this “a tough case for the sneaker company” because trademarks in genuinely different industries can coexist without infringement. Sneakers and steakhouses don’t compete for the same customers. That analysis, though, only holds as far as the products do.
Branded merchandise is where the defense starts to crack. 1587 Prime sells caps, polos, and other apparel both inside the restaurant and through online retail. The steakhouse even provides complimentary 1587 Prime polos to guests who arrive in attire deemed inappropriate. That puts the restaurant squarely in the clothing category, the same space where 1587 Sneakers operates. When a restaurant’s merchandise program overlaps with a clothing brand’s core business, the “different industries” defense loses traction fast. Companies that invest in active trademark protection and monitoring catch exactly these kinds of cross-category encroachments before they escalate to litigation.
Athletes, Restaurants, and the Trademark Blind Spot
Professional athletes increasingly launch restaurants, spirits brands, and lifestyle businesses alongside their playing careers. Mahomes and Kelce aren’t outliers here. The Kansas City Chiefs already hold an extensive trademark portfolio, and individual players increasingly build their own brands spanning catchphrases, clothing lines, and food ventures. The economics make sense: deploy celebrity equity at peak value.
The speed of these launches is where the trademark exposure builds. Athletes and their management teams prioritize opening dates, press cycles, and launch momentum. Clearance work takes weeks. It interrupts timelines. And in many cases, it gets treated as a formality rather than a genuine filter. The 1587 Prime filing in December 2023 shows someone considered trademark registration for the restaurant concept. What the timeline doesn’t reflect is whether anyone searched for prior commercial uses of 1587 outside the restaurant category before committing to the name.
Numbers create a specific collision problem that invented words don’t. “1587” isn’t a made-up term with no prior meaning. It’s a number that can carry significance to multiple parties for completely unrelated reasons. The sneaker brand chose it for historical meaning tied to Filipino American heritage. The steakhouse chose it for jersey math. Neither party was thinking about the other. As athlete branding becomes more common, these collisions will grow more frequent. Any number combination a player’s jersey provides almost certainly already exists as a business name or product identifier somewhere.
The Shark Tank appearance makes this dispute harder for the defendants to dismiss. 1587 Sneakers appeared on national television, and actor Daniel Dae Kim separately invested private equity in the brand. That combination of media exposure and celebrity backing established 1587 in public consciousness well before the steakhouse opened. When a plaintiff can point to national television visibility as proof of marketplace recognition, the argument that consumers wouldn’t know about the brand loses force. Both companies now have celebrity associations and media footprints that overlap.
What Every Business Can Learn From a Number
Before committing to “1587 Prime,” running a professional trademark clearance search would have surfaced the sneaker brand. A proper clearance search covers more than the USPTO database: common law uses, state registrations, commercial directories, and domain registrations. The steakhouse’s December 2023 application suggests the restaurant team was thinking about federal registration. But filing an application isn’t the same as running a clearance search. The application secures a priority date. It doesn’t reveal whether someone else is already using the same name in a related commercial context.
At a few hundred dollars per class, a clearance analysis costs a fraction of what federal litigation costs. Federal court filing fees alone exceed that range before the first hour of attorney work. Restaurant-adjacent disputes carry additional exposure: merchandise sales, licensing agreements, and branded partnerships expand the financial stakes as the business scales.
This isn’t the first time athletes and numbers have collided in trademark filings. The Number 8 trademark dispute between Lamar Jackson and Dale Earnhardt Jr. followed a similar pattern: two parties in unrelated industries, both convinced a number belonged to them. 1587 Sneakers carried its own timing risk into this dispute. The brand launched in April 2023 but didn’t file its federal trademark application until October 30, 2025, roughly 30 months later and six weeks after the restaurant had already opened. Federal registration creates a legal presumption of nationwide ownership. Common law rights, which the sneaker brand relied on during that entire window, are geographically limited to the areas where the mark is actually used. A small sneaker brand selling online may not have had meaningful commercial presence in Kansas City. That gap could matter when the court evaluates the scope of 1587 Sneakers’ rights at the time the restaurant filed and opened.
Cross-industry monitoring is the lesson most businesses skip entirely. 1587 Sneakers wasn’t watching Kansas City restaurant announcements. The restaurant team wasn’t tracking sneaker brands. But once the steakhouse launched branded apparel, the two businesses became direct competitors in the clothing category. Monitoring services that track new trademark filings across all classes, not just a brand’s primary category, surface these conflicts early. The restaurant’s December 2023 USPTO filing would have appeared on a monitoring report nearly two years before the steakhouse opened.
Protect Your Brand Before the Numbers Don’t Add Up
If your business uses a numeric mark, a common word, or any name that could carry independent meaning to another party, the 1587 case is a warning. These conflicts don’t send advance notice. They surface after you’ve invested in signage, merchandise, marketing, and customer recognition. The steakhouse built a 10,000-square-foot operation, developed branded apparel, and opened to public fanfare before the conflict became visible. The time to find a problem is before the doors open, not after customers start calling the wrong company.
I help businesses identify potential trademark conflicts before they become lawsuits. My process covers clearance searches across federal and state databases, common law sources, and commercial directories to surface risks that a basic USPTO search would miss. For companies using numeric or descriptive marks, that broader search is where the conflicts actually surface. I also guide clients through the federal registration process, which establishes the nationwide rights that common law protection cannot provide.
Whether you’re launching a new brand, expanding into merchandise, or naming a business venture tied to personally meaningful numbers, evaluating the trademark picture before launch is the decision that shapes everything that follows. Contact me for a consultation to discuss your brand’s trademark needs before the number you’ve chosen becomes someone else’s legal argument.
