Regarding Boise States original blue colored turf registration, the trademark examiner initially rejected Boise State’s application for “failure to function due to lack of distinctiveness.” To get the initial rejection reversed, Boise State had to submit evidence to “support the contention that the color blue as applied to artificial turf has gained acquired distinctiveness and has come to identify Applicant Boise State University as the sole source of the entertainment services presented in connection with that turf. The Exhibits, inter alia, offer many examples of unsolicited, third-party references, news stories, anecdotes, and magazine articles confirming that the blue turf has become virtually synonymous with Boise State University’s athletics programs.”
Or next chance you get, “Bob, this is Jerry. He went to AN Ohio State University.”
I can’t find any U.S. trademark registration under Boise State’s name for fields that are “non-green.” And now that I look more closely at what is quoted here, I see it’s a claim by the article itself, which doesn’t directly cite to any claim by Boise State that it has a right in all non-green fields. So far as I am concerned, unless I can find a primary source, this amounts to an unsupported claim by the author of the article.
Well, change the capitalization, and there are several universities that might be correctly described as “an Ohio state university”–Cleveland State U., U. of Akron, Youngstown State U., Kent State U., U. of Toledo, Bowling Green State U., Wright State U., Central State U., Miami U., U. of Cincinnati, Shawnee State U., Ohio U., as well as Ohio State.
Thanks–I might start doing that!
What field would that be? Communications or sports management?*
*snark aside, the top major for OSU football players is listed on this website as “sport industry”. A distant second in embarrassment is Wisconsin, where the top football player major is “Community/nonprofit leadership and life science communication” (tie).
As I suspected OSU ran into trouble because their specimens showed ornamental use instead of trademark use.
https://www.dispatch.com/news/20190911/ohio-states-trademark-request-for-the-denied?template=ampart
How and when is The supposed to be used?
The name of the band Paul McCartney and John Lennon were members of was called The Beatles. Not “Beatles.” But The Beatles.
So when a person says, “I am a fan of The Beatles,” they are grammatically (linguistically?) correct.
When a person says, “Play a song by The Beatles,” they are grammatically correct.
But if someone were to say, “Play a The Beatles song,” it sounds funny. Most people would say, “Play a Beatles song.” Are they wrong for doing so?
I have virtually no interest in American colleges and how they choose to refer to themselves, but I’d just like to take this opportunity to sincerely thank Ascenray for patiently and clearly explaining how trademark and copyright law work, both here and in many other threads, despite the continual misunderstandings - I feel I’ve learnt a lot. Also, as an aside, I like your gender neutral pronouns (though personally I’m happy with using “they, them” etc., but let’s not hijack this thread with that discussion).
I knew a guy who was very much not an athlete who baaaaarely squeaked by with a degree in communications at the UW (late 80s). It made me reassess his intelligence level.