Hacker News Reader

Comment by ericmay | Hacker News Reader

Columbus resident here :)

I saw this as well, it only applies to sports apparel and goods:

> “Ohio State is pleased to have received a trademark for THE on branded products associated with and sold through athletics and collegiate channels,”

They don't literally have a trademark on the word. And if you follow sports the "THE Ohio State University" with an emphasis on "THE" is a thing that is associated with the university. They sell shirts with "THE" in all caps with the university colors and such.

I'd say that if you find this distasteful, I think you're better served arguing against patents and trademarks in general since this seems to my very biased eyes to be reasonable based on the current system we have.

View on HN

>I'd say that if you find this distasteful, I think you're better served arguing against patents and trademarks in general since this seems to my very biased eyes to be reasonable based on the current system we have.

What better way to argue against the absurdity of many patents and trademarks, in general, than to argue against some entity being able to trademark the most common word in the English language!

It's a perfect example of how broken the entire space is.

> What better way to argue against the absurdity of many patents and trademarks, in general, than to argue against some entity being able to trademark the most common word in the English language!

Except that argument seems to rest on a misunderstanding. They didn't trademark the word, they trademarked the word in a specific context (https://www.gerbenlaw.com/trademarks/universities/the-ohio-s...):

> IC 025. US 022 039. G & S 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. FIRST USE: 20050800. FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 20050800.

Frankly, the way they seem to use it is really odd (https://www.diehardsport.com/college-football/ohio-state-big...). In English, "the" doesn't even really make sense as a standalone word, so I really doubt this trademark conflicts with anything.

Funny enough, I actually know that it's in the context of clothing! Even better, I've spent a non-trivial amount of time dealing with trademark lawyers and getting a better grasp of trademark and patent law in the past several years -- so despite what some people seem to think, I'm not a complete idiot who is just misunderstanding everything.

And I still think this is absurd.

> Funny enough, I actually know that it's in the context of clothing! Even better, I've spent a non-trivial amount of time dealing with trademark lawyers and getting a better grasp of trademark and patent law in the past several years -- so despite what some people seem to think, I'm not a complete idiot who is just misunderstanding everything.

You made none of that clear in your comment. Your comment read like you think no common words should not be trademarkable, so it would be interesting to know where you think the boundary should be and why it should be there.

> And I still think this is absurd.

We'll, to me, it doesn't seem any more absurd than Apple being able to trademark the word "Apple." The word identifies them in certain narrow contexts, so it makes sense that they can gain the right to prevent others from impersonating them in those narrow contexts, so long as any prior use is respected.

This misunderstands trademarks. Trademarks don’t mean you own the word or words being trademarked, they mean that you successfully registered the word as representing your business/firm/trade in the categories your business operates in. There’s no need for them to be unique words, Apple, Ghost, Monster, Bang (sorry my mind is stuck on energy drinks) are all trademarked.

It’s the legal equivalent of having the name “the” on NPM.

So, if I am misunderstanding, can you explain to me what happens if I have some sportswear that I sell which has the word "the" on it, written in capital letters?

For example, sportswear that says "THE SPORTSBALL TEAM".

Almost certainly nothing, even if this university were to attempt to enforce its trademark against you. The legal test for trademark violations in the United States requires that consumers are reasonably likely to be confused about the origin of the product.

The fact that they can attempt to enforce it is a big part of the problem.

Frivolous trademark and patent lawsuits is a whole damn industry, built upon milking money out of people who cannot reasonably afford to go through an entire trademark/patent dispute without going bankrupt - so they either give up what could potentially be a completely valid use case, or pay some sort of licensing fee they don't need to.

Anyone can attempt to enforce anything against anyone, so I'm not quite sure what you mean. Of course frivolous lawsuits and asymmetrical legal costs is a general problem of many modern legal systems, and I'm fine with general arguments about this problem. But this is clearly being presented as some extreme ridiculous example of a bad trademark, when it's very much not.

>Any one can attempt to enforce anything against anyone, so I'm not quite sure what you mean.

I mean that prior to the granting of this trademark, OSU could not send lawyers my way if I put "THE" on a hat. Now they can.

>Of course frivolous lawsuits and asymmetrical legal costs is a general problem of many modern legal systems, and I'm fine with general arguments about this problem.

General arguments are usually bolstered by specific examples.

>But this is clearly being presented as some extreme ridiculous example of a bad trademark, when it's very much not.

I find it worrisome that so many people think trademarking the word "THE" is somehow not a bad trademark.

What the hell do you consider a bad trademark, if not just the word "the"?

> I mean that prior to the granting of this trademark, OSU could not send lawyers my way if I put "THE" on a hat. Now they can.

No, prior to the granting of this trademark it was still physically possible for their lawyers to threaten you. They wouldn't have had any legal standing, of course, but they still won't have any legal standing unless your products are likely to confuse consumers.

> General arguments are usually bolstered by specific examples.

Yes, but this is not a specific example of the general argument.

> I find it worrisome that so many people think trademarking the word "THE" is somehow not a bad trademark.

It is not a bad trademark. It is a mark that in some specific circumstances (specified in the trademark) is likely to lead consumers to believe a product's origin is Ohio State University. In those circumstances, it's absolutely reasonable to enforce the trademark. In any other circumstances where consumers are not likely to be confused about the product's origin, no trademark violation has occurred. Again, this is how all trademarks work.

> What the hell do you consider a bad trademark, if not just the word "the"?

One example of a bad trademark would be a mark that does not indicate to consumers anything about a product's origin.

> What the hell do you consider a bad trademark, if not just the word "the"?

Someone successfully trademarking an already established generic term. Someone trademarking a web framework called REST for example.

I'm sure you see the need for a trademark system* so you can reliably buy products that you like and not fraudulent imitations. Try to make up a set of rules that give you the features you want from a trademark system and which don't have the features you don't want. That's what the trademark system we have is an attempt to do.

*even if you don't see the need for a trademark system, what matters is whether a majority of everybody else does, which it's pretty easy to see they do in a consumerist society.

Nothing at all.

It would be an issue if the shirt was only THE in all caps, and nothing else. And even then it might not be an issue if it were in pink and orange (although it still might).

The analogy with npm works: thesportsballteam is a distinct package.

The possibility that I can't put "THE", literally the most common word, on a hat or other sportswear sort of makes my point. Absolutely absurd trademark.

That's not true at all, though. Y9u can absolutely do that as long as it's not in red and grey and sold in places customary to collegiate athletics.

That's not quite correct. It's a word mark not a design mark so color does not matter. See [1] or [2].

[1] https://www.nbc4i.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/18/2022/06/th...

[2] https://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=88571984&caseType=SERIAL_...

No, it's not absurd, and you can still put the word "the" on clothing so long as consumers are not likely to mistake your products as originating from Ohio State University. Any sensationalist portrayal of this or any other trademark as "owning a word," or "owning a color," etc. completely misses the point of trademarks.

>you can still put the word "the" on clothing so long as consumers are not likely to mistake your products as originating from Ohio State University

It feels like half the people replying here have never been the victim of over-zealous patent and/or trademark lawyers before.

OSU just needs to sue whoever puts "THE" on whatever they want, claim that it will confuse people, and then the poor bloke who put "THE" on his coffee mug or whatever has to spend thousands of dollars proving to the courts that a coffee mug wont be confused with a football team. And of course it would never be confused for a football team. Yet, they still have to go through the motions, spend the money, or cease & desist. It happens frequently, frequently enough that there are lawyers specifically known for patent and trademark trolling!

Just make the arguments about fundamental problems with the legal system. This is a sensational portrayal of a specific trademark that riles people up because it involves an extremely common English word, but of course anyone who has read about trademarks for a few minutes knows that this is nothing at all like "owning the word 'the'" or "having the right to sue anyone who puts the word 'the' on any clothing."

Why? What reason would you have to put "THE" (and nothing else) on a piece of sportsware?

What does it matter?

Because if the only reason is to impersonate or antagonize[*] Ohio State, the trademark makes sense!

[*]: Fair use nonwidthstanding

Literally nothing

I think the test here is whether or not I can sell a shirt with "THE" printed on it without using the font or colors. I, for instance, would like one as an ironic rejection of this already ironic t-shirt. https://topatoco.com/products/qc-teh

I’m not sure you’re engaging with the previous comment. In the realm of college football appears, THE is quite reasonable associated with OSU.

>I’m not sure you’re engaging with the previous comment.

What do you mean?

I understand that some people associate "THE" with OSU. That's great, really. That does not mean they should be granted a trademark on the most common word in the English language across an entire category of clothing (or, for anything).

Capitalized or not, whether you like football or not, and whether you think it's reasonably associated with OSU or not is immaterial. They were granted a trademark on the most common word in the English language, and that's dumb.

I’m not sure I’ve ever in my life seen a sports garment (or any garment, actually) with solely the word “the” printed on it. So to object on the ground that it is “common” seems pretty shaky. If they tried to go after any use of the word on garment, that would be an obvious overreach. But establishing a trademark on the use of it by itself, given the lack of prior use, sounds reasonable.

One would be, Richard Bland College of The College of William & Mary. I'd point out "The College of William & Mary" except it is no longer in their (e: W&M's) branding standards, but it is the official name since it's on the royal charter. Which was granted in 1693. I wonder if that came up in the review.

Does William and Mary sell T-shirts with only the word "the" on them?

I don’t see a reason that they should be prevented from doing so.

They're not prevented from doing anything. WM sells a "the" t-shirt, OSU sues, WM counter files an anti slapp suit, proves "the" is just a word. Profits from t-shirt sales, profits from lawsuit damages, instant fucking win win.

> I’m not sure you’re engaging with the previous comment. In the realm of college football appears, THE is quite reasonable associated with OSU.

OSU ? Never heard about it. But this happened in the same country which trademarked Windows

Windows is trademarked for certain things, like pink is trademarked for sugar replacement packets - this is not a problem. There are still plenty of places that sell things called windows without legal hassle, and plenty of things that are pink without legal hassle.

Trademarks are usually restricted to tiny, tiny slices of the complete, generic meaning of the trademarked term.

Exactly how many sports clothing items were being sold with only the word "THE" (all caps) on them?

Is just reasonable association enough? Doesn't have to be unique, or distinguishable in some way? After all, if you watch nationally televised Football games, tons of players say they're from "the" X university. Thomas Davis says "The" University of Georgia here, for example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYoW8J9wRrI&t=20s (20 sec in).

Davis would later go on to play for The Washington Football Team.

Despite my family being fans of college football and going to a college that has the main college football rivalry in my state, I have no memory or inclination of there being any association between THE and OSU. I'm not certain I can agree it is a reasonable association.

Went to a national champion college football school and everyone just says Ohio State. I've never heard THE used to refer to OSU in my life but maybe I'm not a big enough fan (or care about big 10 football over the sec).

Considering they were in a fight with fashion brand Marc Jacobs, it really sounds like your emphasis on the association with the school name isn't as close as you claim.

They really do seem to have a trademark on the word "the" when associated with clothing, which is profoundly stupid. It is not a case of trademarking their school name with an article in front, but just the article itself.

I don't feel like looking for the actual trademark or court documents.

says here that tosu has been using it since 2005, and only pursued trademark after marc jacobs filed for one in 2019

This is, of course, how all trademarks work. A trademark violation only occurs if a consumer is reasonably likely to be confused about the origin of a product.

Ideally, but there is a tendency for overreach by the courts and much broader harassment by lawyers "protecting" trademarks.

That may be, but just make the actual argument against trademarks or for a massive overhaul of the trademark system. Don't make sensational arguments about how absurd it is "for a university to own one of the most common words in the English language" when that's not true and when your actual point is "there are some fundamental problems with our trademark system."

> I'd say that if you find this distasteful, I think you're better served arguing against patents and trademarks in general since this seems to my very biased eyes to be reasonable based on the current system we have.

If anything I find trademarks to be the least unreasonable part of the whole IP nonsense.

As an example, it seems absurd to me that Disney gets to decide in which works Spiderman can or can't appear (or is that Sony? Why??) when that character is part of our shared culture. At the same time, if anyone can put Spiderman in their stuff, you should at least be able to tell which version of Spiderman you are seeing and if it is an "official" production or an alternate take, and it seems like some form of Trademark could help here.

As someone from the state of Oregon (home to THE Oregon State University), I find this very distasteful indeed.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com