The federal trademark registration for "Dale Earnhardt Jr." was not filed by Dale Earnhardt Jr. The application, received by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on June 23, 2000, lists his father, R. Dale Earnhardt, as the applicant. When it registered in January 2003, the owner of record was the RDE Administrative Trust, with Teresa H. Earnhardt as trustee.
That file sits behind an answer Earnhardt Jr. gave during the "Ask Jr." segment of the Dale Jr. Download, posted Oct. 13 on Dirty Mo Media's YouTube channel. A listener asked how his autograph has changed over the years. Part of the reason he signs "Dale Jr.," he said, is that "Earnhardt" is hard to write, and around 2004 he was signing thousands of autographs at the track every weekend.
The other part was legal. "I don't really remember all the details, but I was working with Teresa to establish the rights to my name," he said. There was "a window" where the name "was a little touchy," legally, "and so we took it off the roof of the car." He kept "Dale Jr." on the car and the name rail, and said that even once he had the legal rights to his name, the short version was easier. He did not give dates, terms or a price.
What the trademark file shows
Registration No. 2,673,722 covers DALE EARNHARDT JR. in 18 classes, with a claimed first use of February 1998. The original list of goods ran from automobile air fresheners and pocket knives to collector thimbles, hair scrunchies, candy and popped popcorn, plus "participating in professional automobile races and related exhibitions." Most of those classes have since been cancelled at renewal. Caps, shirts, decals, mugs, license plates, miniature cars and the racing services survive.
The file also carries the standard line for a living person's name: DALE EARNHARDT JR. "identifies a living individual whose consent is of record." His consent was on file for a registration he did not own.
The owners, in the order the record lists them, are R. Dale Earnhardt, the RDE Administrative Trust, Teresa H. Earnhardt, JR Motorsports, LLC, and DEJ Holdings, LLC, the current owner at a Mooresville, N.C., address. The office logged automatic ownership updates on June 21, 2006, and Feb. 6, 2008. It does not show what changed hands for the name, or on what terms.
The shorter mark took a similar path. DALE JR. (Reg. No. 3,178,850), for caps, jackets and cloth baby bibs, was filed July 20, 2001, by Dale Earnhardt, Inc. That was five months after Dale Earnhardt was killed on the last lap of the Daytona 500. Its chain of title runs from DEI through the trust and Teresa Earnhardt to JR Motorsports and DEJ Holdings, with ownership updates logged on the same two dates.
Earnhardt Jr. announced in May 2007 that he would leave DEI, and in June 2007 that he would drive for Hendrick Motorsports in 2008. The February 2008 update for both marks was logged less than two weeks before his first Daytona 500 in a Hendrick car. The record does not say whether the transfer was part of his exit from his father's team.
The 1998 signature
The rest of his answer was about handwriting. The name rail on his cars, he said, is "my signature from 1998, just roughly." Years ago he started carrying the R in "Jr." around and back through the whole name, and he asked his sister, Kelly Earnhardt Miller, to update the rail to match. Her answer, as he told it: "It's trademarked. We're not changing the name rail."
So the signature printed on his merchandise is the one he used about 25 years ago, not the one he signs today. He also admitted he doesn't love signing his full name and does it "every now and then" when a fan asks.
The surname fight
The last name has been contested inside the family before. Teresa Earnhardt, who owns registrations for DALE EARNHARDT, opposed Kerry Earnhardt, Inc.'s applications to register EARNHARDT COLLECTION for furniture and custom home construction. The Trademark Trial and Appeal Board dismissed her opposition in 2016. In July 2017, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit vacated that ruling, finding the Board had not properly decided whether "collection" was merely descriptive. On remand in November 2018, the Board held that EARNHARDT COLLECTION is "primarily merely a surname" and sustained the opposition.
That case decided what Kerry Earnhardt could put on the federal register. A Board opposition does not rule on whether someone may use his own name on a product; that question belongs in an infringement suit in federal court, like the counterfeit-merchandise case NASCAR filed in Charlotte in July. Earnhardt Jr. did not mention his half-brother's case on the podcast.
The next filing
The DALE JR. registration hits its 20-year mark on Dec. 5, 2026, when DEJ Holdings owes its Section 8 and 9 renewal, with a six-month grace period after that. The USPTO emailed the courtesy reminder on Dec. 5, 2025. The renewal will show whether the caps, jackets and baby bibs are all still being sold under the name.
Should a driver's name belong to the team that pays to put it on the roof, or should it leave with him when he walks out the door?
Sources: "The Day Dale Jr Had to Take 'Earnhardt' Off His Car," Dale Jr. Download: Ask Jr., Dirty Mo Media, Oct. 13, 2026; USPTO TSDR records for Reg. Nos. 2,673,722 and 3,178,850; Teresa H. Earnhardt v. Kerry Earnhardt, Inc., No. 2016-1939 (Fed. Cir. 2017); TTAB Opposition Nos. 91205331 and 91205338. Photos: U.S. Navy, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
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