Controversy strikes again in the BJJ World, and unsurprisingly, it is the Gracie family behind it, once again. In what appears to be the latest effort to cash in as much as possible on Jiu-Jitsu, Rener Gracie officially filed to trademark a grappling move that everyone has been using for decades.
Namely, the Gracie University co-founder decided to submit a request to patent the Gift Wrap position, a staple of grappling and MMA, rebranding it as the SafeWrap, giving him sole proprietary rights over the use of the term. As expected, this move did not go unnoticed, nor did it go down well with the Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu community.
The Gift Wrap Position in BJJ
For those who have been grappling for at least a while, the Gift Wrap position in BJJ is nothing new. It is a highly efficient position which is the perfect checkpoint between mount and back mount, allowing for a myriad of attacks through exceedingly uncomfortable control.
The Gift Wrap works when you can literally make the bottom person give themselves a hug with one of their arms. The goal is to get one arm into a position similar to the rear naked choke, just done with the opponent’s own arm around the neck, rather than yours.
In order to achieve that position, you should be either mounted on top of an opponent who is turning sideways or behind them in any way or form. As you wrap their arm around them (hence the name of the position) you aim to control the wrist of the arm with one of your arms, so that they can’t pull it out.
The end goal of the BJJ Gift Wrap is to control, as it does not deliver a direct choking threat to the opponent on the bottom. However, you can use it for certain punch chokes and wristlocks if you really want to, although I find it to be the most useful for rear triangle entries.
We witness the position a lot in MMA matches as well, as it is one of the staple ground-and-pound positions that once achieved, can determine the outcome of the match. As such, it is also highly useful in self-defense, which is most likely why Rener Gracie decided to patent the Gift Wrap as the SafeWrap in an attempt to further portray BJJ as the cream-of-the-crop martial art for self-defense.
Rener Gracie’s SafeWrap
The SafeWrap, a.k.a. Rener Gracie’s attempt to patent The Gift Wrap is sort of a mix between the Gift Erap position and Danaher’s Straight Jacket back control system. Actually, one of my students, now a brown belt, has been using this combination for a few years now, as he discovered it during his exploration of the Gift Wrap. Too bad he didn’t think about trademarking it.
The SafeWrap position that Rener Gracie is trying to “pioneer” is actually a modified Gift Wrap that has been created for specific use by law enforcement. It involves two officers handling and immobilizing a suspect, with one targeting the upper, and another one the lower body of the suspect.
The upper body control is literally the Gift Wrap position merged with Straight Jacket elements to provide control over the second arm, either placing it across the chest or across the back of the recipient.
Meanwhile, another officer controls the legs of the opponent. looking to cross them at knee level, reminiscent of most Honeyhole or 50/50 shoelace entanglements. Rener Gracie had NYPD officers try out the move on both sides of it, and provide their testimonials as he shamelessly tries to promote it:
Gracie Jiu-Jitsu has been leaking into law enforcement curriculums lately, which is a move saluted by everyone who has spent even a day training in grappling. However, is there really a need to blemish the practical use of Jiu-Jitsu in law enforcement with such transparent cash-grabbing actions as trademarking a move that literally everyone should actually know and be able to use for free?
Can Someone Trademark a BJJ Technique?
By law, trademarking follows a very specific procedure that, when followed closely, technically allows anyone to protect a specific sports move as a trademark or patent. Three things are crucial for any innovation to be considered eligible for a patent:
- Patentable subject matter – Defined by a specific code.
- Novelty – A move/method that is new and not recognized by anyone else in the field.
- Non-Obviousness – The move/method does not resemble an existing one in the field.
- Utility – The invention has to be useful.
- Enablement – Refers to a written description of the specification in the patent claim application.
Technical terms aside, Rener Gracie’s effort to rebrand and patent the Gift Wrap as the SafeWrap fails in two points (novelty and non-obviousness) to begin with, and might not even be recognized as a valid one.
Yoga guru Bikram Choudhury saw a similar application rebuffed by the Court of Appeals when he tried to trademark a Yoga sequence as his own. After all, the legal stand of the United States Copyright Office is that “a selection, coordination, or arrangement of functional physical movements such as sports movements, exercises, and other ordinary motor activities does not represent the type of authorship intended to be protected as choreographic works under the US Copyright Act.”
As per the above, trademarking a specific BJJ move or technique should be impossible, but I guess we’ll see whether Rener managed to squeeze his SafeWrap by somehow. It wouldn’t surprise anyone who is familiar with his business model.
Did Rener Gracie go Too Far (Again)?
I really think that there is absolutely no need to introduce trademarks and similar legal frameworks to the sport. The Gracie family already has the tightest financial grab on the sport, whether it is through Gracie Barra, the Gracie University, the IBJJF, or any individual Gracie gym, fighter, or other marketing effort around the world.
In the last decade, we’ve seen a shift in BJJ that sees more people adopt the term Jiu-Jitsu, not really caring about origins or founders. The sport has already undergone so many modifications and evolved so much past the original Gracie Jiu-Jitsu that there are folks who train now that barely even know about the Gracie family.
At the end of the day, we train Jiu-Jitsu because it is fun, and it might come in useful someday. Some of us, myself included have gyms and live from the sport by giving back to the community through classes. Imagine what would happen if we all tried to patent moves that have been around for millennia.
The attempt to rebrand and patent the Gift Wrap position as the SafeWrap is Rener Gracie’s most desperate move yet, making even less sense than giving people belts online. It is time it all stopped.
