Trojans Strip Gamecocks of "SC" mark

[oddball]

It's all well and good to pass a law to create a law for South Carolina, but South Carolina tried to file the trademark in with the federal government and if Southern Cal filed theirs first, then South Carolina has no claim whatsoever and I don't care what anyone says. You're blaming Southern Cal when the blame solely lies upon South Carolina for being lazy. Stop overlooking what is the real problem and it is all South Carolina's fault. Is it right that Southern Cal is going after them? Legally, yes? Morally? Eh. I don't know. As sports fans we sit here and think, "How can people get that wrong?" Yet, how many times have you seen someone wear a hat and ask them if they are a fan of the team and they say, "Oh I just liked the colors. I have no clue what team this is." Southern Cal is protecting their brand. I do understand their side and I do understand the people who dislike it also, but it is what it is. I know this sounds dumb, but a company/team/university has to protect it's brand and must be vigilant on it, otherwise it'd be okay for us to use McDonald's golden arches on our "Mom's Hamburger Joint". The other thing is that you can I guess create a law where South Carolina could use and sell merchandise in the state, but if one piece of merchandise is sold and transported out of state you'd probably be violating commerce laws which I'm going to take a wild guess and say this ruling has something to do with and that is the heart of the issue, the sale of the "sc" hat outside the state of South Carolina. I guarantee you this came up because someone's grandma was in South Carolina and bought a "SC" hat and brought it back to their grandchild and said, "I found this neat looking Trojan hat in South Carolina and I bought it for you." to which someone in Southern Cal's legal department saw it and thought, "That's not good. We need to do something about it." It's hard for us who are familiar with the marks to see how people could confuse them, but then if you ask people who aren't, they'd be likely to confuse them and that's what this is all about. It's not about us, it's about the people who don't follow sports and making sure they understand what marks belong to what schools.

[chestnutz]

The Mets and Yankees' cap logos are identical only in that they're both an interlocking NY. That's it.

On the other hand, USC has invested a lot of money in its "SC" identity, while South Carolina hasn't. Look no further than your sig for proof of that.

Sorry dude, get your eyes fixed, seriously. The Yanks and the Mets logos are extremely similar, much moreso than the USCs.

It's pretty stupid, like Cola said. There are many more pairs of schools whose logos are way more similar than that.

[leggman01]

other than the fact that the letters are "sc" and both interlock (the southern cal "sc" doesn't even interlock, in my opinion...it just kind of overlays), there little similarity in those baseball marks - the letterforms are entirely different, the colors aren't close...i simply don't see how one could ever be confused with the other

[JQK]

I just love how there is "Trojan" and "Còck" in this thread's subject, and I'm the only immature bastard to point it out so far...

[KCScout76]

With all the things going on, they are fighting over the right to use "letters." Alpha-letters that neither school (or personnel) invented or created. Pretty soon, the big universitys will be sueing us teachers and telling us we can't use their letters in school, or used in certain combinations; instead of teaching kids how to spell SCapegoat - they will have to spell Sapegoat because using the "SC" together is a vilation of their trade infringement.

What a bunch of Assh*les! (notice I didn't use the "SC" together)

[illwauk]

Whatever "legit" reasons the Trojans have for doing this, it's extremely naive of anyone to think this won't set a dangerous precedent.

[jblommel]

Seems wrong...

There just colleges. Who cares if South Carolina has "SC" on their baseball hats.

How about high school teams???

South Cabarus????

[bigwalk]

Whatever "legit" reasons the Trojans have for doing this, it's extremely naive of anyone to think this won't set a dangerous precedent.

Assuming you buy into the theory of the slippery slope...sure...

[leggman01]

Whatever "legit" reasons the Trojans have for doing this, it's extremely naive of anyone to think this won't set a dangerous precedent.

Assuming you buy into the theory of the slippery slope...sure...

one of the first things i thought about when i saw this thread was that marquette could come to my university, methodist, and demand that we cease to use the MU logo we use...there are a LOT of schools who have the same initials, and many whose lettermark logos look much more similar than the south carolina and southern cal logos - this could clearly set a dangerous legal precedent

[The_Admiral]

Whatever "legit" reasons the Trojans have for doing this, it's extremely naive of anyone to think this won't set a dangerous precedent.

Assuming you buy into the theory of the slippery slope...sure...

A slippery slope isn't the same thing as a precedent.

[Cola]

It doesn't matter now I guess because my university just issued a statement saying they will continue to use the logo as well as sell merchandise from it. They said from their understand, this doesn't prevent them from doing anything differently- it only means they "can't get a federal trademark registration for it." Said they can still receive royalties just as before.

So...I don't exactly understand how all of that works, but it makes me wonder...what is the point of a trademark if what my university is saying is true?

[Gothamite]

With all the things going on, they are fighting over the right to use "letters." Alpha-letters that neither school (or personnel) invented or created.

No, I'm sorry, but I think you're completely wrong.

Nike didn't invent the fourteenth, ninth, eleventh or fifth letters of the alphabet. Heck, they didn't even create that particular combination of them. But does anyone really think that it would be legally permissable to put the name of that Greek goddess (which the folks in Beaverton neither invented nor created) on a pair of running shoes? Or a piece of athletic wear?

Neither school is claiming exclusive use of the letters. They are staking a claim to the distinctive way in those letters are rendered, which is after all the entire point of trademark and copywright law (J.K. Rowling didn't invent the English language either, but his particular expression of it was, is and by right ought to be her property and not mine).

[Gothamite]

It doesn't matter now I guess because my university just issued a statement saying they will continue to use the logo as well as sell merchandise from it. They said from their understand, this doesn't prevent them from doing anything differently- it only means they "can't get a federal trademark registration for it." Said they can still receive royalties just as before.

So...I don't exactly understand how all of that works, but it makes me wonder...what is the point of a trademark if what my university is saying is true?

The point is, as I understand it, that they can't prevent any other entity from merchandising their own stuff with the logo. So a shop in Columbia could print up their own t-shirts with the interlocking "SC", or have a bunch of garnet caps done up with the logo, and the University can't say boo.

I think also means that on the off chance the aforementioned high school has been paying the University for the right to use the logo, they don't have to anymore.

Again, I am most emphatically not a lawyer, but this appears to be a free for all - anybody can use it and nobody can stop anybody else from using it. Southern California didn't sue them to abolish the logo, after all, they only objected to the Gamecocks' attempt to register control of it. Now, in most cases loss of control amounts to about the same thing. But not always. Had this been their primary athletic logo, I suspect they'd come down differently. But considering it's just one sport, and not even the most prominent college sport in the country, they seem content to use what amounts to a public domain logo.

[leopard88]

It doesn't matter now I guess because my university just issued a statement saying they will continue to use the logo as well as sell merchandise from it. They said from their understand, this doesn't prevent them from doing anything differently- it only means they "can't get a federal trademark registration for it." Said they can still receive royalties just as before.

So...I don't exactly understand how all of that works, but it makes me wonder...what is the point of a trademark if what my university is saying is true?

The point is, as I understand it, that they can't prevent any other entity from merchandising their own stuff with the logo. So a shop in Columbia could print up their own t-shirts with the interlocking "SC", or have a bunch of garnet caps done up with the logo, and the University can't say boo.

I think also means that on the off chance the aforementioned high school has been paying the University for the right to use the logo, they don't have to anymore.

That is probably not quite true. Federal trademark protection grants exclusive rights to the registered mark throughout the country, regardless of where the mark has been in active use. However, even without federal trademark registration, South Carolina may have obtained common law trademark rights in areas where it has actually used the mark.

What that means is that they may be able to prevent someone else from using the mark in commerce in the South Carolina area, assuming they can prove they have obtained common law trademark rights. However, they would probably have a harder time preventing someone from using it in another area of the country where they have not been actively using the mark. For example, if someone in, say, Oregon started selling their hats in Oregon, South Carolina would have to prove that they had been using the mark and/or established a common law trademark in that area. Given the exposure from the College World Series and the like, they could prevail in such a situation. However, it would hardly been a slam dunk for them (or for the side claiming the right to use the mark in Oregon).

ColaCock (am I the only one who chuckles when I read that?), I obviously haven't read the statement. Does it follow along the lines of what I have described?

[mac756]

Why can the Cinncinatti Reds and Chicago Bears use the same logo then?

[winghaz]

Two thoughts:

1. This is really silly on Southern Cal's part. It's not as if people are going to confuse the two, or South Carolina is going to benefit at Southern Cal's expense.

2. That being said, South Carolina should just quit complaining and ditch the SC logo. You think of SC and you don't think of South Carolina. South Carolina goes with the Carolina monicker, and should stay that route, going with the C and the Gamecock on the baseball cap. The logo looks sharp on the football helmets and would look fantastic on baseball caps.

Now, another thought about similar letter logos: North Dakota and Notre Dame share the similar interlocking ND logo. And with the Sioux going Division I in all sports, I'm wondering if Notre Dame is going to raise a stink about the interlocking ND. Or did the Sioux come up with it first? I don't know, but it could be a mess.

[Discrim]

Why can the Cinncinatti Reds and Chicago Bears use the same logo then?

seems like we go over this a lot....anywas sit down class, time for the refresher course:

Bears C

Reds C

take away outlining, take away shadowing, just strip it down to the bare essentials of two wishbone C's. one has symmetry, the other lacks it, take a crack at which is which. admittedly, a far subtler difference than that between the two SC's (South Caroilna's has a fancier appearance to Southern Cal's blocky look, as mentioned), but the main difference nonetheless.

winghaz, I have given that some thought, as the only real difference in the ND's is North Dakota tends to use a two-color outline on theirs while Notre Dame usually uses no outline, or one-color trim. That has the potential to get ugly unless both schools already have an agreement in place.

[Cujo]

Why can the Cinncinatti Reds and Chicago Bears use the same logo then?

Yeah, as Discrimihater demonstrated, there is a clear difference between the Bears' "C" and the one used by the Reds.

However, why hasn't the University of Georgia (and Grambling State for that matter) broken away from using the Green Bay "G" by now? It's pretty much a trademark of the Packers, and it's not like fans down south would throw a major fit if the Dawgs went with something a little more original, would they?...

[logodawg]

Why can the Cinncinatti Reds and Chicago Bears use the same logo then?

Probably for two reasons. First, the Reds either never bothered to trademark the wishbone C before the Bears and/or the Indians (look at their old caps logos) starting using it or they just didn't care. Second, neither team could try to legally keep the other from using it now because the wishbone C is now a visual mark that's associated with both teams in the eyes of the public.

EDIT - As far as the USC-SC ruling; I haven't read the ruling but I can understand the judge's reasoning. South Carolina abandoned the use of the interlocking SC by not using for over 3 years, allowing for it's use by somebody else. Ford was in the same boat when it had to sell the GT under that name instead of GT40 like they wanted because another company claimed it after Ford abandoned it. Also it would have to do with the language of USC's trademark. If it said that their trademark was for "an interlocking capital S and C where the S is 1.5 times the height of the C and .5 times the width of the C placed on a maroon background and to be used as an identifying mark for the University of Southern California's varsity baseball program" then USC is well within their right. I have no idea if it does read anything like that, but it won't surprise me if it did.

But I do agree that USC went a bit overboard on trying to block S. Carolina from trademarking their SC.

[Gothamite]

Why can the Cinncinatti Reds and Chicago Bears use the same logo then?

Yeah, as Discrimihater demonstrated, there is a clear difference between the Bears' "C" and the one used by the Reds.

However, why hasn't the University of Georgia (and Grambling State for that matter) broken away from using the Green Bay "G" by now? It's pretty much a trademark of the Packers, and it's not like fans down south would throw a major fit if the Dawgs went with something a little more original, would they?...

Don't know. Grambling has talked about moving away from the Packers' "G" for years in favor of their own identity, but hasn't actually done it.