Come on Mizzou - Left Field Lounge

[tatedog]

There are probably more State people aware of this now than there will ever be Missouri people aware of it.

 

[Dawgzilla]

First of all, "trademark" is a noun, not a verb. You don't "trademark" a term, you use a term as a trademark. That may seem like a nitpicky issue, but it legitimately helps explain some of the questions you raised.

A trademark is any symbol, word, phrase or design that can be used to identify the source of advertised goods or services. MSU is claiming certain terms as trademarks, meaning that MSU believes those terms can be used to identify MSU as the source of the goods or services that are labelled with those marks. A term becomes a trademark simply by being used in commerce as a source identifier for goods or services. Using the "TM" signal helps to alert others that the user considers that term to be a trademark, but its not a necessary part of trademark protection. The first day that MSU used the phrase "This is OUR State" to promote the university, that phrase became an MSU trademark.

When most people use "trademark" as a verb and claim a phrase has been "trademarked", what they probably mean is the phrase has been registered. You can register a trademark at both the state and federal level, and those registrations can provide you some value in resolving trademark disputes. But, as I posted above, trademarks are enforceable whether the marks are registered or not.

The real heart of trademark protection, though, is to protect the consumers moreso than the trademark owners. If consumers have learned to associate certain marks with a known supplier of goods, then they can be confused by some other producer using the same or similar marks to promote their goods, and they might make an ill-informed purchase based upon that confusion. So, whether a trademark is registered or not, trademark infringement only exists if there is a likelihood that consumers will be confused by the accused infringer's use of a certain mark. It is not enough to show that someone is using the same or similar mark on the same or similar goods; there also has to be a likelihood that consumers will be confused by those similarities. There is an extremely large amount of case law examining various factors that indicate whether confusion is likely.

I also wondered to myself why "MSU" was labelled as a trademark on that webpage.....but, in the right circumstances the term "MSU" can obviously indicate that Mississippi State University is the source or sponsor of the labelled goods or services. If you are in Mississippi and you see "MSU" printed on a maroon banner, your natural inclination would be to assume the banner was referencing Mississippi State. If it turned out the banner was referencing Missouri State, or worse, had been placed there by an impostor to intentionally mislead you, then you would be the victim of confusion. Mississippi State could then try to assert its "MSU" trademark to get the banner taken down. The same logic would apply to "Bulldog", "State" and some of the other claimed trademarks on that webpage. The University obviously could not claim Michigan State was infringing the "MSU" mark, but they could claim confusion caused by some newcomer who was using those letters in a way that would tend to indicate some connection to Mississippi State.

So, the University is making a trademark claim for a lot of words and phrases kind of "just in case" they need to step in and put a stop to an infringing use. You can think of all types of hypothetical uses for those marks that might be severe enough to warrant a cease and desist letter and possible litigation, as well as plenty of benign uses of those marks that the University should just ignore.


For the "This is OUR State" trademark, I think the University would have an infringement claim against any other school using that slogan within the State of Mississippi.....although if that school's logo were fairly prominent on the billboard then that would mitigate the infringement claim to some extent. It just depends on how the phrase is used, and whether that use is likely to cause confusion among consumers. In addition, if some business like a strip club or something tried to use the "This is OUR State" slogan, the University might be willing to address the matter with them just to protect the integrity of the mark.

That is why I discussed this issue above with respect to the LFL trademark. If you were in Missouri's stadium and saw the sign for their "Left Field Lounge" Club, you would not likely be confused into thinking there was some connection to Mississippi State. However, if you were a State grad living in Missouri, and you received a flyer advertising membership into the "Left Field Lounge" Club, you might very well think that the flyer came from MSU and not Missouri, and you might be inclined to buy tickets before you even realized your mistake. That's why I think this really needs to be addressed. I particularly don't like the way Mizzou is advertising a "LEFT FIELD LOUNGE" Club, with the LFL part in one font and "Club" in a different font. They are using the phrase "Left Field Lounge" as an adjective for the noun "club". As such, they are clearly using "Left Field Lounge" as a trademark, and not merely as a geographic identifier .

I think the school has generally done a great job in protecting its important trademarks, and I think it was a big issue with the recent rebrandings of the logo and the "HailState" slogan, which have been federally registered. Some of our marks - "bulldogs" "MSU" "State", etc. - just are not very strong and aren't capable of being protected. Our logos and "HailState" are unique -- or at least distinguishable from other existing logos -- so that they are much stronger and more worthy of protection. If NC State were to paint "HailState" in their endzone, I think MSU would take issue with that. We might not be able to get them to change their endzone, but we would be able to prevent them from using that term in any sort of national campaign.

 

[tatedog]

Let's just hit Missouri where it hurts by naming our right field area "The Safe Space in Right Field" or "SJW Corner."

 

[BulldogBlitz]

We didn't trademark it. They did.

 

[EngDawg]

Left Field Louge TM*