And what hasn’t been said yet, is that trademarks invalidate when they’re not defended and there’s no attempt to maintain trade distinctiveness.
Someone might reasonably believe that OSU isn’t planning on suing all the other people with prominent THEs, but if they didn’t, the trademark would be lost faster than it took to apply for it.
For this stupid application, they have to prove THE wasn’t a generic element of other people’s pre-existing branding, and that consumers, seeing a “the” are most likely to think of OSU instead of any other producer of clothing, including Ralph Lauren who have the same application, doomed for the same reason.
