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Comment by DiggyJohnson | Hacker News Reader

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.

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>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).

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