Fall is here and with it the beginning of college football season. When you are watching your favorite team on TV or, if you are really lucky you are watching from the bleachers, you’ll be cheering for (or cursing) the quarterback and the defensive linemen.
What you will not see during the game is that your favorite college team has a “Intellectual Property Team” working behind it off the field to protect its brands just like you are protecting your business brands. Maybe we should refer to them as “Defensive IP Linemen”.
In my college days at the University of Georgia, the school, in fact the whole town, lived for game day to see the mighty Georgia Bulldogs run onto the field! Years later, and on the opposite side of the country, I still haven’t outgrown that excitement. I found myself cheering for my daughter’s college team, the Fresno Bulldogs, in their season opener. As a college student in Georgia, I was yelling “Go Dawgs!” with everyone else in the stadium. Now, working with an IP firm, I was curious about the trademark aspect of sports. I discovered that my beloved “Dawgs” is a trademark registered by the University of Georgia Athletic Association, along with several other team-related trademarks. Even collegiate color combinations may be protected. LSU et al., v. Smack Apparel (E.D. La. 2006).
More than 50,000 stores across the U.S. carry collegiate product and generate an estimated $3.5 billion in collegiate licensed retail sales. With huge royalties from the sale of licensed collegiate merchandise going back to the colleges for scholarship and development, it is definitely in the schools’ financial interest to police the sale of unlicensed goods. Aside from the revenue aspect of it, schools must also protect the overall image of the college or university from unauthorized use of logos and marks above slogans written in poor taste or product made of poor quality material.