Dorothy_ Mantooth

September 11th, 2019 at 3:22 PM ^

   they've reworked their filing and are now (perhaps more appropriately) trying to trademark 'Duh ohio state university' 

Joined: 01/24/2012

MGoPoints: 1423

MGoStrength

September 11th, 2019 at 3:22 PM ^

Good...stupid Buckeyes and their "The".  Can I also put "The" before my name and trademark it?...because there's only one of me and stuff. :0

Joined: 07/29/2010

MGoPoints: 20002

Mr Miggle

September 11th, 2019 at 4:03 PM ^

A month is less time than I thought it would take to get them to even look at it. It's not so cut and dried a ruling either.

The details are interesting. It's only for a line of clothing. Another company applied first. They were both rejected because they made technical errors in using the trademark, not because they were making a silly claim. Those mistakes can be corrected.

https://fox8.com/2019/09/11/ohio-states-application-to-trademark-the-refused/

 

 

Joined: 10/07/2010

MGoPoints: 47649

Arb lover

September 11th, 2019 at 5:59 PM ^

Eh I'd say there's two issues that make it less likely OSU ever sees this than you make out. 

1) someone got there first, so if they continue with the process OSU is just out in the cold. 

2) It looks like this came with a response from the patent office on what they would need to do in order to move forward. "In order for the trademark to register, OSU would have to use the trademark on a label for the hats and shirts and not just on the front of the product". That's an official position by the USPTO as far as I can tell, which basically states in laymans terms "you can't trademark the word "THE" on the shirt/hat. Sure, you could put "the" on a label somewhere and add a TM(assuming #1 goes away), but if Stae wanted to say THE STAE university on their hats and shirts, there would be nothing OSU could do about it, even if they alter their application.

I should probably add that it will not surprise me if the first application sat there for years, and that it just wasn't taken seriously, but now because there's a second albeit incorrect application, they are going through the motions.

Joined: 11/26/2017

MGoPoints: 6915

bluepdx

September 11th, 2019 at 3:54 PM ^

Media routinely overstate, understate, or misstate intellectual property stories like this. It's an initial refusal, which is very common for all trademark registration applications. No "appeal" is necessary, just a regular response to the objection is due in 6 months, and I'm sure OSU was ready for this objection given the nature of the mark and the objection itself. 

Also, fwiw, there is no inherent reason why the word THE cannot be registered as a trademark. Indeed, one of the objections by the USPTO is that there is a prior filed application to register THE for clothing and other consumer goods by the Marc Jacobs company. There are reasons why it can be difficult to register a word like THE by itself, and OSU has to deal with some of them, but that's a different matter. 

Joined: 08/17/2010

MGoPoints: 1033

SwordDancer710

September 11th, 2019 at 4:26 PM ^

MGoLawyer with IP practice. So, initial denials for trademark applications are very common, so I'm not surprised that the Examiner rejected it. OSU will have an opportunity to argue against the rejection.

Looking into the rejection more closely, it seems that there's already a registration for "THE" for clothing, and the Trademark Office isn't convinced that the word "THE" is even source-identifying for OSU in the first place. Not insurmountable, but I'm not holding my breath.

Still, to be safe, we should all refer to them as "An" Ohio State University from now own.

Joined: 08/17/2009

MGoPoints: 1429