WWTSD

July 31st, 2015 at 11:51 AM ^

Everyone thinks he came up with said grill, even me at one time.  There was an SI article on him in the past few months.  This company came to him and asked him to be a spokesperson for said grill and he obviously consented to putting his name on it and everything.  It worked out quite well for him.

But it wasn't a case of him personally trademarking his name.

SwordDancer710

July 31st, 2015 at 10:17 AM ^

Reg. No. 4770248

Class: IC 025. US 022 039. G & S: Clothing items for men, women, and children, namely, hats, caps, shirts, and T-shirts.

Owner: (REGISTRANT) The Ohio State University state university OHIO 190 North Oval Mall Columbus OHIO 43210

Other: The name(s), portrait(s), and/or signature(s) shown in the mark identifies "URBAN MEYER", whose consent(s) to register is made of record.

I bet if he leaves OSU, Urban will have the tradmark assigned to wherever he goes. I haven't filed a trademark for a person's name before, so I'm unsure how the "consent" role plays here.

MDisciple87

July 31st, 2015 at 10:27 AM ^

So if my name also happened to be Urban Meyer, I can't make a tshirt with my name on it? I feel like someone should change their name and do that just to be able to challenge this. 

Anyone want to trademark John Smith? I bet you could make a lot of money.

LSAClassOf2000

July 31st, 2015 at 10:31 AM ^

You know, the funny thing is that it is something that is becoming much more common because it really does seem to be about finding another source of merchandising income. I think that Kansas State has done this with Bill Snyder and Steve Sarkisian had a rather detailed agreement when he was at Washington, even down to the use of his voice - it would be interesting to see if USC does the same thing. Dabo Swinney - if you can believe this - even has some restrictions on the use of his name per a filing Clemson made. I am sure there plenty of other notable examples.