Facepalm: USPTO Grants Ohio State University Trademark On The Word ‘The’
from the facepalm dept
For at least three years now, we have been discussing the goings on concerning a trademark application submitted by Ohio State University for using the word “the” on apparel. If your brain just came to a screeching halt, it may be because you’re not a college sports fan. See, Ohio State University absolutely loves referring to itself as The Ohio State University. Part of the tradition is for athletes who go on to have professional careers always announce their college affiliation by really leaning into the word “the”. Even college sports commentators think it’s all very stupid and the USPTO initially rejected the trademark application based largely on technical grounds.
Which was curious, because technical grounds aren’t the largest issue here. The USPTO should have rejected the application based on the notions that the word “the” is one of the most commonly used words in the English language and therefore shouldn’t get trademark protection, not to mention that a shirt with the word “the” on it does absolutely nothing to inform the public that that shirt is an OSU product. But OSU pushed for the trademark in yet another application… and the USPTO somehow decided to grant the mark.
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office approved Ohio State’s application Tuesday by issuing a registration certificate. It allows Ohio State to control the use of “THE” on “clothing, namely, t-shirts, baseball caps, and hats; all of the foregoing being promoted, distributed, and sold through channels customary to the field of sports and collegiate athletics,” the certificate reads.
You can see the absurd certificate in the link. It looks hilarious, with just the word “the” at the top. Except that none of this is actually funny. Why?
Well, because the USPTO’s actions now mean that nobody else can make any athletic apparel, hats, or other clothing consisting solely of the word “the”. And while very few people or companies actually do that, they certainly should be allowed to. Because it’s the word “the”. No matter how annoying OSU has been with its silly little tradition, the word “the” on clothing is not identified with OSU. Or any other entity.
Because it’s just the word “the”. And the USPTO really, really should know better.
Companies: ohio state, the ohio state
Comments on “Facepalm: USPTO Grants Ohio State University Trademark On The Word ‘The’”
The band The The should come out with some t-shirts with “The The” on ’em. I mean, 2 ain’t the same as 1, right?
Re: This is THE THE day your life will surely change
Agreed. Matt Johnson predates the living prior art out of stupid decisions like this, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZYgKCbFbWY
Re: Re:
You do know that prior art is for patents, not trademarks, right?
How it might work if this wordmark stands:
# U.S. Patent and Trademark Office approved Ohio State’s application Tuesday by issuing a registration certificate. It allows Ohio State to control # use of “THE” on “clothing, namely, t-shirts, baseball caps, and hats; all of # foregoing being promoted, distributed, and sold through channels customary to # field of sports and collegiate athletics,” # certificate reads. (-_Q)
Always a winning tactic, where the only way to stop variations of an application from being submitted time after time after time is to grant an application.
THE US Patent and Trademark office is staffed by a bunch of idiots.
Re:
Well, they had to go somewhere after all the institutions closed down. 😉
Re: dangling participles are not a new thing
Precedence here. Abraham Lincoln created OSU with 30,000 acres of stolen by force Indian territory, adding federal monies and Rutherford B. Hayes added T to OSU in 1878 to make it special. Not like no one ever heard of the
Re: Re:
And whoever was registering osu.edu in 1989, instead of the-osu.edu (still unregistered, with or without the hyphen!), seemed to have forgotten. Although the WHOIS data new consistently refers to “The Ohio State University”.
Re: Re: Re:
It’s called NICKNAMES and has no legal basis or standingm
Re: Re: Re:2
Oh? You wanna tell that to Wilkinson?
Re: Re: Re:2
Nobody claimed it had any legal meaning. But it’s odd that a university would call itself by a “nickname”, and not even recognize the “true name” it insists people refer to it by. Were they serious about this, I’d expect them to register it with the “the”, use that in all branding, and redirect the old domain. Hell, nobody even bothered to create a wikipedia redirect for “The OSU”, which any employee could’ve done for free without permission.
Re: Re: Re:3
Actually, permission is required, as it is with any other copyrighted material, but it’s preemptively granted by the license on Wikipedia.
not idiots exactly...
Hey, just because OSU asked Mom previously if they could TM “The”, and they asked Dad after she said no…
well, maybe they are idiots.
This article illustrates that nothing is as definite as it used to be.
Re:
booooo
Re: I saw what you did there
…because I have a degree from The OSU
A
Anyone available (pro bono of course) to help me file a trademark for the letter ‘A’ to be used on hats ? Thanks in advance!
Re:
No doubt leaving us with a lot of red MG-hats because of the A-holes.
Re: Geographic specific
I hope you don’t live in Oakland
So every logo and names having the word “the” must have a license?
I can imagine Ohio State University will have a massive list of defendants on their lawsuit.
This word... 'The'... it's not really common, is it?
https://www.ebay.com/itm/325246156668
E
How likely would a court challenge of THE trademark be to get it nullified?
Re:
Working on it. First, use the “trademark”. Done. Second, get a lawyer-gram. Come on, THE Ohio State University THE Lawyer Firm send me THE letter. Then we’ll see what happens in court.
From here on out, i will be unable to recognize what univerity OSU is, i shall only know TOSU.
Good job, USPTO and TOSU sportsball idiots.
Time to trademark TEH before someone else figures out it’s teh only alternative.
Re:
Is it? What about ‘hte’? 😉
Oh no! Somebody has been given a right to trademark that specific three-letter word which is most common in our English language. This is not good as that would make it impossible for this language to function properly. Loss of this word makes writing awkward, stilted, and impossible. How can any of us live without that word, or having to pay Ohio State for its use? I guess paragraphs like this will become normal for us all.
I can write an entire paragraph without using “the”. That’s a challenge I passed.
“And the USPTO really, really should know better.”
You would think that, but in a nation where some people believe they can’t get knocked up the first time they have sex… we get the peons we deserve.
Re: It just HAPPENED...
There’s a complete lack of any responsibility in that concept. “It just happened I GOT KNOCKED UP.”
And them Duke Boys sure did fancy jumping bridges that were out for repair. I’m pretty sure Dodge (now FCA) wouldn’t have honored a bumper-to-bumper warranty on that.
Getting pregnant – you did the action, and there are consequences. If you live in the US as of Monday half the states will help you and the other half will lecture you.
Jumping bridges that are out. It’s plain stupid. Not covered by warranty.
Using “the” word “the” without violating midwest fucked up America’s college of dumbshits’ trademark… well… time will tell.
Ohio, Iowa, and Florida are responsible for “the” donald mcdonald president thingie we had to put up with. I’ll see them in “the” courthouse before I give up my rights.
Re:
It gets worse. There are some in Congress that believe you can’t get pregnant through rape because the body either shuts it down or the rape kit acts like an abortion. It’s like they’re completely unaware that any person with a uterus who’s raped is offered emergency contraception for a very good reason. (-_Q)
Re: Re:
While you’re suggesting they view it in scientific terms, a majority of congresspeople believe (or claim to believe) in supernatural forces. They probably think that either God would stop the pregnancy, or he wants it to continue (and let’s not talk about his role in medical interventions).
Re: Re: Re:
A joke about the sad state of mental health care in this nation would go here if only they hadn’t kept electing the crazy into office.
Re: Re: Re:2
I think that is their mental health care, TBH. 😉
Re: Re: Re:
Put it this way, if God had wanted us to die in childbirth or from disease, He could have prevented us inventing prophylactic measures.
Re: Re: Re:
But, such a belief only goes up to when the baby is born. As soon as that happened, the mother is the sole decision maker and she should have thought about it before she had kids she couldn’t afford, and the people who forced her to bring to term will be busy dismantling access to everything from education to food for the child. While still claiming to be good Christians, of course.
Re: Re: Re:2
Unless she wants to take her child to Drag Queen Story Hour, then she is unfit.
Re: Re: Re:3
So somebody who isn’t ready to be a parent can just take their toddler to Drag Queen Story Hour to get the CPS to take them off their hands? And after the GOP passes legislation to get Drag Queen Story Hour banned on the basis that it “promotes deviant sexual practices,” what then? Hell, I’ve heard they’re already moving to have pantomime dames banned because they’re invariably drag queens.
Re: Re: Re:4
Well they can just walk into a fire house & hand the baby to anyone & not have to answer any questions.
Re: Re: Re:5 Telling other people what to do... the ultimate in mansplaining
Well they can just have an abortion 8 months previously and not have to go through anything for 9 months AND THEN go to said firehouse.
If you would like to respond, please write it on paper with an ink pen, place in a straw basket, and go walk into a firehouse to drop it off. I’m sure the kind EMTs have nothing better to do than transcribe your note to a reply here on TechDirt, OR FIGURE OUT WHAT TO DO WITH A *#&#(& BABY!!!
Talk about making YOUR problem someone else’s problem.
Re: Re: Re:6
Well, they can just have an abortion 8 months previously and not have to go through anything for 9 months AND THEN go to said firehouse.
The SCOTUS just overturned Roe v. Wade, remember? And by the way, primary parents of unwanted babies have been able to leave them at fire houses since 1999. Are you deliberately obtuse, Ehud, or is it a fashion statement?
Re: Re: Re:7 Telling it like it is...
No it’s not that simple, but thanks for saying so. “Overturn” is a legal principle that applies to laws, not precedential opinions.
Remember that thing that didn’t happen? No, I don’t.
No, they haven’t. It was 2001 for my state – Arizona. Please stop making up stories and pretending those are facts.
Are you deliberately obtuse, Ehud, or is it a fashion statement?
I’m really unable to select from your two options:
1. I’m obtuse
2. It is [what is?] a fashion statement.
SO I’l go with
Congress has PUNTED on Roe for almost 50 years. Your heroes McConnell and McCarthy and MTG and the people who came before them between 1973 (when you were not yet born) and now… those are the problem.
Don’t put it on me.
Re: Re: Re:8
According to whom?
https://www.google.com/search?q=legal+precedent+overturned
Re: Re: Re:8
“Overturn” is a legal principle that applies to laws, not precedential opinions.
And since when is case law not law, shit for brains? I’m sorry you don’t understand how things work in your legal system, but don’t put it on Autie that you want for an education.
Re: Re: Re:8
*whooosh*
Re: Re: Re:7
I’m sorry you missed the point.
Abortion means you don’t need to carry the baby for 8-9 months and THEN leave he/her at a firehouse.
It wasn’t 1999. My state started it in 2001. Still, none of this changes the fact that an abortion means you don’t go through 8-9 months only to drop your kid off.
If you can’t be bothered to get the facts straight (1999 vs 2001, etc.) please just stop.
Re: Re: Re:8
Oh, just fuck off, you nasty, unempathetic little troll. 😡
Re: Re: Re:8
I’m sorry you’re too ignorant to get the point. It might not have been 1999 in your state, but that’s still the first year safe haven laws existed. Still, none of this changes the fact that abortions are either banned or expected to be in over half of the states of the US. If you can’t be bothered to have a smidgen of empathy for people with uteruses whose Fourth Amendment rights have been flushed down the shitter, please just leave.
Re: Re: Re:9
,,”please just leave”…
I’m not in your military. You’re not my xo. Step off.
Re: Re: Re:10
“I’m not in your military. You’re not my xo. Step off,” demanded the troll because it was easier than caring about others.
Re: Re: Re:9
You should probably go read the Fourth Amendment. It doesn’t say A THING you think it says.
Hop along now. It’s a new day, and yesterday’s stupidity can be erased if you can be encouraged to read and learn.
Re: Re: Re:10
Text of the 4th Amendment proving the right to abortion:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Now why don’t you take your own advice about reading and learning, you hypocritical piece of shit?
Re: Re: Re:11 Abortion restrictions is not an unreasonable search or seizure
Thanks for quoting part of the 4th amendment. Of course it has nothing to with abortion. It’s about searching and seizing evidence for an eventual trial. You knew that, and yet…
You might want to look that one up as well. Hypocrisy is having different beliefs to one’s own actions. I neither believe in unreasonable searches and seizures nor commit those acts. I do believe in the right to an abortion but I don’t commit that act as I’m neither an OBGYN, nor a pregnant woman.
It’s always awesome to find a great intellect with which to discuss things. Your “novel ideas” on the fourth amendment somehow being related to the right of abortion is pretty much… dead on arrival. Thank you for sharing your opinion. Here’s what a wise man would say:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQCU36pkH7c&ab_channel=justscrollingby%E3%83%84
Re: Re: Re:12
It’s about searching and seizing evidence for an eventual trial.
So people are arrested to be presented as evidence in a trial? Please excuse me while I change my clothes. I just pissed myself laughing at your ignorance.
Re: Re: Re:7
Again, that’s a news headline. No so accurate in reality.
What happened is the court overturned a procedural error. One that made case precedent more powerful than actual law. And at the same time deprived the states of making constitutional laws of their own.
This error has been corrected.
It’s up to congress to make any national laws. A court can not and must not legislate from the bench!
What’s funny is
we love giving up our rights, don’t we? How many people realise that a jury has the right and duty to acquit a guilty party by invalidating the law. Despite the nonsense judges occasionally spew in jury instructions.
Re: Re: Re:8 Jury nullification
Swiftest way to get excused from jury duty:
“I will explain jury nullification to my fellow jurors.”
I’ve used that.
I’ve also walked into the jury pool with a Grisham paperback. I suspect Turow would have worked as well. The prosecutor took one look, asked no questions, and I was struck with cause… because clearly reading a novel means I can’t tell honest justice and the law from fiction.
Yeah, judges do mislead jurors, often. A jury does not have to return a verdict. A jury does not have to find for one party or the other. A jury is a group of people who are chosen to attempt consensus. Their lack of reaching that is just annoying to the seat-warmers in the Judge’s chair and the prosecutor’s chair.
You can leave a hospital AMA (Against medical advice) and you can do the same at a jury trial.
Why have I not had to sit through four different trials? Apparently my reading is at a high enough level that I won’t swallow the bs the prosecutor thinks is a “open and shut case.” (not a legal standard).
Re: Re: Re:9
You can leave a hospital AMA (Against medical advice) and you can do the same at a jury trial.
You can’t leave jury service against medical advice, so I suspect the rest of your claims are bullshit as well. Now excuse whilst I change my clothes again.
Re: Re: Re:10 Analogies have one part that is the same, and one that is different.
A literal reading of what I wrote would in fact misunderstand the example analogy.
Here’s a Google search that provides a lot of different ways to do that. https://www.google.com/search?q=how+to+leave+a+jury&oq=how+to+leave+a+jury
Leaving aside the begged question of why one would want to leave a jury, the simple solution is to request the Court to excuse one from that service. Reasons include anything from the very subjective “financial hardship”, to medical (“I can’t sit in a chair for more than 20 minutes… and here’s a note from my doctor.”) and more.
I appreciate your desire for hygiene. It should help you the next time you try to not do your civic duty, because if you smell great and dress the part, the Court will let you go.
Happy Weekend and USID to everyone!
Re: Re: Re:11
It should help you the next time you try to not do your civic duty…
You’re the one avoiding his civic duty, actually, so don’t put that on me.
…because if you smell great and dress the part, the Court will let you go.
No they won’t, and I wouldn’t expect them to either. If serving on a jury means I’m not like you, then I’m even happier to do it.
Re: Re: Re:12 Actually.
Actually people who start a sentence with the word “actually” feel superior and a desire to shame or admonish the listener.
Thank you for sharing your lack of expectations, none of which were solicited. If it makes you happy to think you’re not like me, I would leave you with that joy.
Have a great weekend and happy US Independence Day.
Re: Re: Re:13
Do show how I’m “actually” avoiding my civic duty.
None of your comments on this page have been hidden, so everyonecan read what you’ve said about avoiding jury duty in the past. It’s no great leap to imagine your attempts to evade your civic responsibilities continue.
Re: Re: Re:9 “The law as it stands”
… is bull. Any court has the right to nullify a law that violates constitution at the local level or above.
In a jury trial the legal decision is with the jury.
I’m still waiting for an intelligent anti-copyright lawyer to use that in closing arguments.
a person redistributing an item at lower or no cost is capitalism at its greatest.
People need to better understand their rights as a juror. INAL. But I will disregard any incorrect mandate from a judge as a juror and inform the panel of their right to do likewise.
Re: Re: Re:7
Let me break it down for you:
Are you deliberately obtuse (are you fucking stupid), or is it (deliberate obtuseness) a fashion statement (are you fucking stupid)?
Given your obvious inability to correctly parse the question, the answer’s clearly yes on both counts, meaning you’re doubly fucking stupid. 😂
Re: Re: Re:6
Baby safe drops have been in place for a LONG time. No I’d, no questions asked.
Fire houses are but one of many places. Many hospitals, clinics, even some schools also participate.
Wikepedia
Wikipedia? That not a registry of anything. It’s a private 3rd party UGC site.
Having or not having “bothered to create” anything on Wikipedia or Netflix or Twitter or MyEhud.COM does nothing to change the legitimacy of anything.
If your thesis is “You must have a page on this third-party website or you aren’t real” no, that’s not how any of this works.
Re:
Stop being willfully obtuse. The suggestion is that it does not and has not seemed actually important enough to use the “The” anywhere ever except for control and possible rent-seeking in sports-related merchandise.
Re:
Encyclopedia Britannica? That not a registry of anything. It’s a private 3rd party site. Your point?
Duh!
THE!
This has got be be one of [Blocked due to trademark] more absurd and boneheaded moves by [Blocked due to trademark] USPTO, yet sadly it seems entirely within character for [Blocked due to trademark] agency.
Hopefully someone with sufficient funds can shoot [Blocked due to trademark] trademark down because having [Blocked due to trademark] word ‘[Blocked due to trademark]’ treated as though anyone could or should own it, despite [Blocked due to trademark] word being a core part of language both english and otherwise, one in use by [Blocked due to trademark] public on a regular basis would be quite [Blocked due to trademark] bit of insanity.
Re:
None of this is how trademarks work, however.
Re: Re: More like this?
Taken from an advert for a UK university:
As part of our Sponsor licence requirements, Sheffield Hallam University must report details of [Blocked due to trademark] student’s placement to UKVI, including [Blocked due to trademark] date they begin [Blocked due to trademark] placement, confirming when [Blocked due to trademark] placement has ended and their return to normal study. Also, if [Blocked due to trademark] placement employer and/or place of employment should change during [Blocked due to trademark] period of placement, or if [Blocked due to trademark] placement ends earlier than expected, this must be reported promptly to UKVI.
THE was first
I guess they didn’t consider the Times Higher Education World University Rankings (https://www.timeshighereducation.com) as being relevant because they are not from the US. Or something.
Re:
Possibly just out of pique, because OSU doesn’t even crack the top 500.
I wonder how quickly this would be dropped if news organizations made a part of the house style to always say an “unnamed university in Ohio” to avoid incidental trademark infringement.
Re:
Here, let me fix that quote for you “” to always say “THE unnamed university in Ohio”……
So it’s an article of clothing. (credit to Adam Burke)
Doh! Duh.
Besides the logical and legal points, it is duh Ohio State University
Huh?
Wait, how are we supposed to communicate when %%% word %%% is banned from %%% common discussion, from from %%% ability to use %%% word %%% to discuss %%% use of %%%?
Got it.
If someone doesn’t agree with your erroneous claims that aren’t welcome on yourforum.
But .. it’s not your forum. You’re just someone peddling lies.
2001 is not 2982, and your opining doesn’t trump reality.
Night night.
Re:
Wow! Projection much?
Re:
[Hallucinates facts not in reality]
WP and >
Is it possible to make WP not require two empty lines, so that included quoted text and a break actually causes a break of the quote?
Example:
empty line above, then
empty line above so this should not be quoted.