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Ohio Football

Topic: For the Trademark Hawks.

Topic: For the Trademark Hawks.

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OUPride
General User

Member Since: 9/21/2010
Post Count: 574

Status: Offline

For the Trademark Hawks.

Posted: 11/1/2014 12:35:17 PM

I saw this on the road yesterday. I know that some here are active in notifying OUr trademark office regarding violations.

http://www.buckeyecorner.com/Style/Laser-Frame/20506683

OrlandoCat
General User

Member Since: 3/15/2005
Location: United States
Post Count: 355

Status: Offline

RE: For the Trademark Hawks.

Posted: 11/1/2014 1:30:32 PM

OUPride wrote:

I saw this on the road yesterday. I know that some here are active in notifying OUr trademark office regarding violations.

http://www.buckeyecorner.com/Style/Laser-Frame/20506683

Honest question:

If we started putting the O-H-I-O thing on bobcat gear, would we be violating a trademark of some kind?

RPO R6V
General User

Member Since: 1/7/2005
Post Count: 206

Status: Offline

RE: For the Trademark Hawks.

Posted: 11/2/2014 1:52:25 AM

OrlandoCat wrote:

OUPride wrote:

I saw this on the road yesterday. I know that some here are active in notifying OUr trademark office regarding violations.

http://www.buckeyecorner.com/Style/Laser-Frame/20506683

Honest question:

If we started putting the O-H-I-O thing on bobcat gear, would we be violating a trademark of some kind?

It's already happened and nobody got sued as far as I can tell. Still, I'm ashamed of the fact that I haven't contacted our legal staff about a lot of questions like this I have, as well as specific instances of what I believe could be violations of our trademark. I will change that. I still think about the reverse of your question, e.g. the Nike OSU t-shirts with "OH-IO" on them.

Bobcatbob
General User

Member Since: 12/21/2004
Location: Coolville, OH
Post Count: 1,347

Status: Offline

RE: For the Trademark Hawks.

Posted: 11/3/2014 1:49:10 PM

This horse has left the barn, fellas. You can't go anywhere in Columbus now without seeing dozens of T's, sweats, jackets and signs that say simply "Ohio". There are entire displays of same in sporting goods stores, Homage locations and every other place that sells "local" stuff. Most of these things don't bother to present a color scheme. If that doesn't represent infringement then nothing does.

Because we're in Cowtown, I'll go a step further and claim that virtually all of this is subject to a licensing deal as well and that money ain't traveling down 33.

GoCats105
General User

Member Since: 1/31/2006
Location: Seattle, WA
Post Count: 7,430

Status: Offline

RE: For the Trademark Hawks.

Posted: 11/3/2014 2:12:39 PM

Bobcatbob wrote:

Homage is notorious for that. They print vintage gear though, so I'm not sure how that comes into play.

Last Edited: 11/3/2014 2:13:06 PM by GoCats105

D.A.
General User

Member Since: 8/6/2010
Location: Georgetown, ME
Post Count: 1,190

Status: Offline

RE: For the Trademark Hawks.

Posted: 11/3/2014 3:16:17 PM

OrlandoCat wrote:

OUPride wrote:

I saw this on the road yesterday. I know that some here are active in notifying OUr trademark office regarding violations.

http://www.buckeyecorner.com/Style/Laser-Frame/20506683

Honest question:

If we started putting the O-H-I-O thing on bobcat gear, would we be violating a trademark of some kind?

Sorry, I thought I would clean this up, as my original reply was a little hurried and garbled:

tOSU's marketing of "O-H-I-O" as it relates to the cheer that they do during their games, is a permitted historic theft/use of our name. They cannot prevent us from using that, and we cannot prevent them, due to the same agreement. So our tee is OK, and so is their license plate holder.

Ohio State trademarked the "OH-IO" cheer thing a couple of years ago, and that is their permitted use due to our settlement agreement with them to acknowledge their historic theft/use of our name. I have no idea if they have granted our use of that, or if we even sought the use of it, but I would speculate we did not seek to use it and we did not fight their pursuing the trademark of it.

Not cited above but a permitted use of the singular word Ohio is a singular Ohio in script, denoting the script Ohio band formation. While I have seen tees and other merch that shows a script Ohio in the actual font that the band spells on the field, I have seen other versions of a script Ohio that does not exactly replicate the band formation, which I believe would violate the agreement. However, to my knowledge, we have never challenged those items.

As I understand it, anything clearly referencing OSUcks that uses a singular "Ohio" without "State" that isn't referencing a historic use would be a violation of the agreement.

See the thread in general discussion if you want to see the details of that agreement.

If you see anything that you feel may violate the agreement, send that to Dan Hauser's replacement, Michael Stephens at stephem1@ohio.edu, as his office oversees such matters. I'm sure he would love to hear from you.

Last Edited: 11/3/2014 4:53:18 PM by D.A.

The Few, The Proud, The Bobcats!

And for the record, I hate tOSU, and Ricordati and Torgerson are DB's.

"This isn't just another walkover from the MAC." Kirk Herbstreit, another DB, on College Football Gameday

RSBobcat
General User

Member Since: 8/22/2010
Location: Columbus, OH
Post Count: 4,437

Status: Offline

RE: For the Trademark Hawks.

Posted: 11/3/2014 11:22:43 PM

OR - Just:

1. Join the Bobcat Club
2. Buy Season Tickets
3. Actually Go To Games (Home and Away)
4. Take others to those games and turn them into OHIO fans
5. Stand Up & Cheer (instead of bitching about those who do)
6. Buy OHIO Gear
7. Be a Driver of bringing more alums into the Active Alum Fold

8. Use every potential "trademark" or "institution confusion" incident as an opportunity to "Educate" the ignorant.....

RS Bobcat

OUPride
General User

Member Since: 9/21/2010
Post Count: 574

Status: Offline

RE: For the Trademark Hawks.

Posted: 11/4/2014 9:45:48 AM

OrlandoCat wrote:

OUPride wrote:

I saw this on the road yesterday. I know that some here are active in notifying OUr trademark office regarding violations.

http://www.buckeyecorner.com/Style/Laser-Frame/20506683

Honest question:

If we started putting the O-H-I-O thing on bobcat gear, would we be violating a trademark of some kind?

Great idea; although most of the morons in this state and even some of our own students would just think it's a St. Patty's Day bucknut shirt.

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