What a world! (trademark pending)

By: 
Patrick Fisher, pfisher@newpraguetimes.com

Sports fans or alumni of Ohio State University likely heard in the last week that the university has been successful in trademarking “The” when referring to the college. For anyone that doesn’t know beginning around three decades ago Ohio State started a campaign to make it stand out by referring to itself as The Ohio State University. It is something that has taken off in its use by football players and a lot of the alumni at the university. From what I understand the trademarked use of the word “The” is very narrow so the university apparently can’t go after every instance the word “The” is used.

The news did remind me of other times people or groups have sued others for use of a name or a logo. Back in the 1990s there was a radio story about how some big name companies went after people who had similar website names. Ajax cleanser sued a man who had a website also called Ajax, but it was about the Greek mythological hero. Archie publications (the people who put out Archie comics) sued a family that had Veronica in the website name. In that case a girl, whose name was Veronica, had been gifted the website by her grandfather, who had paid for the use of the site name. In both those cases the courts ruled against the big companies since neither person was infringing on their trademarks.

There’s also been a dispute between the family of the late actor John Wayne and Duke University. The family wants to use Wayne’s nickname “The Duke” to sell alcoholic beverages and the university has objected to this, mainly the university is worried people might think there’s a connection between the two. The Wayne family has countered that since the university has never been involved in selling alcohol there shouldn’t be a confusion.

It is one thing that sometimes our society seems to be trying to trademark or copyright nearly everything. Some have poked fun at it. There’s been a couple writers for the Grand Forks Herald or the Star Tribune who would do a column and they would refer to their child as “the child (trademark pending).”

I realize some might feel I use these columns to talk about too many light hearted matters, especially since there are so many serious things in the world. I do agree our world is going through some serious changes. War in other parts of the world, unrest in many spots and, unfortunately, many who are trying to make politics or a profit off of others tragedies. Things that weigh down our minds, our hearts and our souls. It’s why I sometimes try to lighten the load, shall we say.

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