Hacker News Reader

Comment by ziddoap | Hacker News Reader

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.

View on HN

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

Reply on news.ycombinator.com