Damn, this almost makes me ashamed to be from Ohio.
“The” is the most commonly used word in the English language, FFS.
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I interned at The Ohio State University, (mid 1990s), and it’s a technical point that distinguishes Ohio State from other large " Anystate State Universities" that don’t use the definitive article. Part of being an alum is being “technically correct” about your school. (I graduated from Antioch, which was maybe 80 times smaller, so it doen’t strike me as a particulartly interesting quirk)
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I was going to get this as a licence plate for my truck so that I could refer to it as THE Truck.
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Came here to say that trademark is usually way more defined than copyright, so trademarking a logo that happens to be a common word isn’t necessarily frivolous…and then I saw…
Standard Character Claim: Yes. The mark consists of standard characters without claim to any particular font style, size, or color.
So, they’re idiots and doomed to fail.
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I like the way you think!
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Yeah, well, Antioch is nothing but quirks.
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Seems legit™.
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“The” pretentious fucks
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I imagine that any OSU legal student with ten minutes of trademark law knowledge would be aware that there’s nothing at all strange or “stupidly generic” about trademarking a wordmark specific to a unique application (i.e., “exclusive usage on university or college souvenir apparel”).
They aren’t trademarking the word “The”. That is incorrect.
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Yes. The mark consists of standard characters without claim to any particular font style, size, or color.
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They’re applying for a Standard Character Claim, not a wordmark.
I don’t know if they cover this in the first ten minutes of trademark law, but it is the definition of “stupidly generic”.
(It is limited to “clothing” with the letters “the” in every font or design possible, but that’s still stupidly, completely, and impossibly general.)
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I didn’t go to either school.
But now I kinda want a blue T-Shirt with a big, yellow “THE” on it…
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Not especially. They’re applying for a trademark for hats, shirts, and clothing items that feature the word THE.
I mean, when Cory frames it as “they want to trademark “the!”” it sounds ridiculous. But there isn’t exactly a lot of competition to sell THE! shirts, and they aren’t preventing anyone from using the word “the” as a part of their name or design.
They had a goofy (and unique) marketing idea and want to make sure other universities don’t rip them off. Not sure what’s stupid about it in any possible way. But this hyperbolic article will definitely increase sales!
It’s not wordmark protection, the application is for the use of these three letters across all clothing.
If you don’t see how that’s stupid, I can’t help you.
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Yes, that’s correct. We’re saying the same thing: they’re trademarking shirts/hats/clothes that say THE on them as their design. They aren’t trademarking a specific font or color, just the “THE” featured on it. Since there’s lots of other universities that use “The…” in their name, they’re trademarking it as an idea. You are free to feel that it is stupid to protect their idea and not buy their trademarked shirts.
They’re attempting to trademark it, in a doomed stunt application. Unless you’re claiming that people consider “the” to broadly have the meaning of “Ohio State University” in North America. It’s too stupidly broad to be trademarked, by definition.
They’re not going to be trademarked with this application.
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A number of people on LinkedIn list their alma mater as “(The) Ohio State University.”
They should totally add the parentheses.
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