hey what's up guys this is a video i
never thought i'd have to make but we
are gonna look into
a trademark that was granted uh recently
in the last like week
for the word
the
and you can see there it is class 25
clothing namely t-shirts baseball caps
hats yeah uh the word the so obviously
this has the potential
to cause an incredible headache
for print-on-demand sellers like you and
i
especially with
algorithms that still to this day
probably need to be fine-tuned dare i
say like the amazon merch
algorithm that is
notorious for doing a lot of false
positive um
misidentifications of usage of
trademarked words resulting in
rejections that could possibly get your
account suspended we all know what i'm
talking about here
so yeah this is going to be an
interesting one so let's dive into it
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resources for you guys in the
description i've got a free print on
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links are down there in the description
all free
all right so i had uh well renee i
noticed that she had shared this link um
back basically i think on the day it
happened or maybe the day afterwards
saying ohio state university wins legal
battle to trademark the word
the
so this is going to be real interesting
and i did you know i read this article
and i found an article that i kind of
prefer a little bit more from espn that
i think we should take a look at it kind
of goes into a little bit more detail
and also pokes some fun at the entire
thing
so the first thing i wanted to share is
that i went to the uspto website and
looked up the word the and i think it
kind of tripped up the search algorithm
honestly because i'm sure there are
trademarks that contain the word the but
as you can see here by the results
um there's some just random words that
pop up uh that aren't even registered
and then there's a really weird
trademark
that i don't know if there's like a
conspiracy theory behind this thing
because i don't know what the heck this
is but there's like a really weird logo
and look at the word mark that they
actually
are applying for it's like a whole it's
like half a page of a book or something
but anyways that's not the point of this
video it was just super random
so yeah uspto is not really helping us
much here but this article from espn i
did like from june 23rd written by tom
van haaren so let's just read through it
a little bit so if you've ever watched
monday night football you've probably
heard former ohio state players proudly
announce their school as the ohio state
university and sometimes players like
kind of make fun of that too from other
schools
with an emphasis on the word the that
simple article has become part of the
ohio state culture and the university
has successfully registered the
trademark for the
the trademark which was initially
approved applied for in august 2019 took
three years to get approved and will
apply to any application on clothing and
apparel so that's what we need to pay
attention to as print-on-demand sellers
as i mentioned a second ago
so while the buckeyes don't own the word
the it is one of the more unique
trademarks
josh gerbin is a trademark attorney and
founder of urban intellectual property
in washington dc who noted it is common
for universities to protect their logos
and emblems but it's highly unusual to
trademark such a vague word quote
you can't own the word for everything so
they don't own the word gerbin said this
was something that apparently they felt
was important enough to spend the time
and energy on to register and ultimately
be able to police the marketplace from
anybody that might be using the word as
branded clothing
so there you go ohio state kind of
trolling on their twitter account
showing uh what looks to be spongebob
uh if i had to guess holding a piece of
paper that says the
it says apparel brand mark jacobs also
applied for a trademark for the word so
it's possible according to gerben that
ohio state was taken a defensive
position by also applying for the
trademark if marc jacobs were to have
gotten the trademark they would have had
the authority to ask ohio state to stop
using it on the apparel on the other
side of it sometimes you see folks file
trademark applications for things they
might not have tried to register before
because they see the mark being used in
the marketplace gerben said
it's kind of common for folks to go
online and try to sell knockoff goods
with university logos and catch phrases
and things like that and that's what i
immediately thought about redbubble so i
came on over here to
redbubble and typed in ohio state and of
course you've got people
infringing on ohio state
because that's what you know people do
on redbubble i mean what can we say at
this point we see it consistently all
the time
and then i was like didn't i do a video
on this like maybe last year where ohio
state was getting in legal trouble or i
mean sorry redbubble was getting in
legal trouble with ohio state over
people infringing on their stuff and
it's like oh yep go to google yes i did
in fact do a video on that not that long
ago because that in fact did happen now
i mean i guess ohio state must have like
some notorious
intellectual property lawyers on the
payroll because it seems like they are
quite active but yes okay so we
shouldn't be surprised redbubble
actually getting in trouble for you know
it's rare i'm not gonna say for once
because they also had that lawsuit that
i knew about with the um biker gang
hells angels which i'm sure was a fun
one for their lawyers to fight in court
uh and then just in case anybody's
wondering red bubble stock
down
75.77 percent in the last 365 days
i'm not gonna attribute that to ip
infringement uh i don't think that's
actually what you know is bringing their
stock down but i just wanted to point
out that they're not doing too hot so
uh anyways back to this article
it doesn't take from a away from the
fact it doesn't take for away from the
fact that it's unique to trademark this
word as is the case with everything in
college football rivalries got involved
when it was first announced that ohio
state was applying for the trademark in
2019 the university of michigan's
twitter account poked fun at the idea by
posting a picture of the word of
with a trademark as the caption
so university of michigan's trolling
like okay ohio state takes the we take
of
gerbin said you'll be hard-pressed to
find another trademark application by a
university on a word like this that
universities are usually focused on
names logos and slogans
even so getting the trademark issue does
not guarantee that ohio state will be
the only university that can use the on
apparel for the first five years that
any trademark is registered another
party can counter with a petition for
cancellation on the grounds that this
doesn't function as a trademark so let's
uh be honest here that is most likely
going to happen if there are any
universities or i mean it could be
anybody it could be us there's that
facebook group trademark watchdogs and
they honestly just try to stop frivolous
trademarks and people are doing it in
like their spare time so um this would
be a good one for them to go after and i
appreciate everybody that you know is
helping fight this cause because it is
kind of ridiculous and i mean real quick
like time out real quick from the
article like anybody that's not on merch
by amazon or that's new uh merch by
amazon i was saying is like kind of
notorious for
false positives thinking like
you know what i mean if we put the word
the in our title but it's just a part of
a long title
right that uh like what if our shirt
just said i love the game of football oh
it has the word the in it and the is
getting a partial match in the trademark
database and then it could incorrectly
um reject that shirt you know what i
mean you don't want to stack rejections
on merch by amazon we know why so i'm
not saying that will happen i'm just
saying we've seen similar things in the
past so
if it did happen like any the algorithm
need to be tinkered with by the
engineers would it surprise us probably
not
um there's an argument in the trademark
community that words like this might not
operate as trademarks gerbin said
in other words a trademark is supposed
to identify the source of a product so
if you see nike on the side of a box you
know that nike inc has made that shoe
and there's no argument to be made there
if someone wanted to it seems unlikely
anyone would challenge ohio state for
use of the word and while the university
doesn't technically own the word they
can now say it has one of the most
unique trademarks in sports
i mean
let's be honest here like
the world is a little bit uh
it's a weird time to be alive all right
so does anything surprise you anymore
this really doesn't surprise me
it's just like hey you know why not give
them grant the trademark for the word
the um
at this point all bets are off right so
i don't know what to say other than uh
you know right now it seems like we can
still use the word the in our merch by
amazon product submissions
one day if that changes abruptly uh this
is probably why uh i imagine that
it will be false positives it's not like
like this should only apply if you're
using literally the word the as the
design
and the as like the title but this is
where it gets into like kind of an open
can of worms i had reached out to my
sister and my dad for comment both of
them are lawyers somehow neither of them
got back to me after like four days i
waited to make this video i was hoping
i'd hear back from them but they didn't
get back to me so i'd love to hear from
you let me know your thoughts in the
comments below
what's going on here like what are we
doing
let me know your thoughts anyways guys
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you