December 1, 2008

Court Upholds Ban on Unlicensed Use of College Colors

Colleges may want to use their school colors to generate additional revenue now that a federal appeals court has upheld a lower court’s decision that the unlicensed use of a college’s colors violates trademark law.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, in New Orleans, considered a case brought against the Smack Apparel Company, of Tampa, Fla., by four institutions — Louisiana State University at Baton Rouge, Ohio State University, and the Universities of Oklahoma and of Southern California — along with the Collegiate Licensing Company. The court ruled last week that Smack’s use of those universities’ colors on its T-shirts could mislead consumers into thinking that the apparel was from the universities.

For example, a T-shirt design in Southern Cal’s trademark red and yellow that did not include the university’s name but referenced its national football championships and included the words “SoCal” in a star design was found to be “confusing” to consumers.

The full text of the decision can be found here. —David Shieh

Comments

1. So does the sky now owe Carolina royalty money for its blue and white color scheme? The universities adopted these colors. They did not invent them. Frequent use of a color scheme by these universities should not allow them to own the color combination. LSU’s own website says that the purple and gold colors were borrowed from Mardi Gras ribbons available in stores in the 1890s. It seems like the real issue was the wording printed on these shirts, which implied that they were official.

   — Lee C    Dec 2, 09:08 AM    #

2. Perhaps Smack can produce a shirt in school colors with the text: “This is NOT an official University of ______ shirt.”

   — Reason    Dec 2, 10:11 AM    #

3. Dang! Wish I’d thought to trademark red. I’m having trouble licensing black and blue.

   — BertW    Dec 2, 02:17 PM    #

4. LSU purple and gold since 1890’s? The University of Washington student body chose purple and gold as their school colors in 1892. Do they have an earlier claim?

   — ep    Dec 2, 02:46 PM    #

5. The issue doesn’t seem to be the colors, but using the colors in a way which implies university endorsement or approval. This looks like the key phrase: “We conclude that the colors, content, and context of the offending t-shirts are likely to cause confusion as to their source, sponsorship, or affiliation…”

   I wonder if OSU’s scarlet and grey could ever be confused with my alma mater Washington State’s crimson and grey? There darn well needs to be more than just colors involved…note that the judgment includes the words “content and context”.

   — ap    Dec 2, 03:47 PM    #

6. Only in America are consumers so easily confused. The labeling of clothes should be like the labeling of foods, let people know. But if they do not have to label genetically modified foodstuff, … I wonder from which university the judge graduated and if he was/is a member of the alumni association. I recently bought a Texas A&M colored sweatshirt for $3 which has Texas and then College Station. Of course Texas is in Austin and A&M is in College Station. No Texas alum or Texas A&M alum would buy the shirt. Bu then here in Europe people buy baseball caps and do not have a clue what the labels mean?

   — KJJ    Dec 2, 03:57 PM    #

7. Legend has it that the University of Kansas tooks its colors — red and blue — from Harvard and Yale, respectively, because most of the original faculty members were from one of those two institutions. So should KU share all its revenue from its official athletic apparel with them?

   — Rob    Dec 2, 06:27 PM    #

8. ap, you also forget to mention that MIT’s colors are Cardinal and Gray,otherwise known as “Blood on Concrete”, for obvisious reasons. I’m also curious if the Cub Scout colors of Blue and Gold infringe on Mass. college of Liberal Arts?

   — Dan    Dec 4, 04:35 PM    #

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