NJ Transit fails to renew trademarks

[OMMF]

NJ Transit is hurrying to register seven trademarks — including its well-known orange, magenta and blue bands — with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office because it failed to renew the marks before a 2012 deadline and a six-month grace period expired.

An official at the trademark office confirmed last week that one of NJ Transit’s most recognizable trademark slogans, “NJ TRANSIT The Way To Go,” accompanied by black and white bars, bands and lines, is among the marks canceled after lapsing for more than a year.

http://www.northjersey.com/news/NJ_Transit_scrambling_to_protect_its_logos_after_trademarks_lapsed_in_error.html

[the admiral]

I'm going to jump all over this and make highly lucrative NJ Transit t-shirts.

NJ Transit has an interesting system of railroad signage. Little logos for each line, not all of which immediately make sense to me. Overall, I like it better than dumpy old Metra here.

[BBTV]

Completely unrelated to the trademark, but until recently I didn't know that PATCO (Port Authority Transit Co) was actually it's own entity and not part of NJ Trans. I always cut through the PATCO concourses in Philadelphia, and see signs for NJ Transit, but never realized that it's just because PATCO connects with NJ Trans in jersey, just like it connects to SEPTA in Phila.

Just to make it somewhat logo related, here's PATCO logo:

[the admiral]

Yeah, it's weird how many different transit agencies there are in the northeast.

Maybe they'll put the New York-based NJT lines under MTA branding now.

[RyanMcD29]

I'm going to jump all over this and make highly lucrative NJ Transit t-shirts.

NJ Transit has an interesting system of railroad signage. Little logos for each line, not all of which immediately make sense to me. Overall, I like it better than dumpy old Metra here.

eh, IIRC the track signage can be a little all over the place in design depending on the station. I think if they did what Metro North does with a standard design and font (though don't use Metro North's italicized font for the love of god), but with a different color for each line, it would look better.

[slapshot]

Completely unrelated to the trademark, but until recently I didn't know that PATCO (Port Authority Transit Co) was actually it's own entity and not part of NJ Trans. I always cut through the PATCO concourses in Philadelphia, and see signs for NJ Transit, but never realized that it's just because PATCO connects with NJ Trans in jersey, just like it connects to SEPTA in Phila.

Just to make it somewhat logo related, here's PATCO logo:

Public transit won't injury you.

[the admiral]

Keep your head down, what?

[Gothamite]

Yeah, it's weird how many different transit agencies there are in the northeast.

Maybe they'll put the New York-based NJT lines under MTA branding now.

Seems unlikely, as MTA is strictly a New York State agency, and I doubt New Jersey would be interested in subordinating their own lines just because they terminate in Manhattan.

[Cosmic]

If someone did register the trademarks before they renewed, would they even be able to stop NJ Transit from using the IP with the obvious evidence that it was already in use? Would someone else even be able to register a trademark that another entity has clearly been using for years?

[illwauk]

Yeah, it's weird how many different transit agencies there are in the northeast.

Maybe they'll put the New York-based NJT lines under MTA branding now.

Our neck of the woods too... it was awhile before I realized METRA and "The L" weren't one in the same. And I've talked to more than enough people who didn't know that the Hiawatha isn't part of the METRA.

[the admiral]

Our neck of the woods too... it was awhile before I realized METRA and "The L" weren't one in the same. And I've talked to more than enough people who didn't know that the Hiawatha isn't part of the METRA.

Yeah, the failure of the CTA and Metra to work together on anything is strange and frustrating. There's a homeless man who's been petitioning for years to treat the Metra Electric as a rapid transit line instead of a commuter line. It's a weird line in that it's kinda both: it stops every four blocks or so through the south side like rapid transit would, but then stops city-by-city through the south suburbs like a commuter railroad, but you have to pay the zone-based Metra fares in the city instead of the flat $2.25 and can't transfer to buses or the L. Also, it's a fixed timetable instead of just coming by every x minutes. I think his plan is basically to run it as an L line in the city and a Metra line in the suburbs, which makes perfect sense, but nothing ever comes of it because screw the south side, I guess.

Both rail systems need to be coordinated much better than they are. It's telling that Metra only cares about the suburbs, because most stations between the terminals and city limits are practically the third world.