NEW YORK (AP) - The Washington Nationals can keep their nickname.

Major League Baseball has settled a lawsuit with a company that said it owned the trademark rights to the name "Washington Nationals.''

"The Washington Nationals have sole exclusive rights to the name,'' baseball spokesman Rich Levin said Tuesday.

The retailing arm of Major League Baseball sued Bygone Sports LLC in U.S. District Court in Manhattan in June, asking the court to declare that the trademark does not belong to the company because its sole purpose in filing for a trademark was to capitalize on the naming of the team, which used to be the Montreal Expos.

Bygone Sports answered with countercharges a month later, arguing that Major League Baseball failed to check to see if anyone else had rights to the name and that MLB could have challenged the Atlanta-based company's September 2002 trademark application.

A trial was scheduled to begin April 3 - the day the Nationals open the season at the New York Mets.

A lawyer for Bygone Sports did not immediately return a telephone message.

"I've just been told that it's been settled,'' Nationals president Tony Tavares said, referring questions to Levin.