Trademark legal issues

[rtrey]

We're having some trademark legal issues with our team name at the University of Oklahoma. We have been called the Sooner Racing Team for about the last five years. Apparently we've been violating the Student Code at OU by using one of their trademarked names ("Sooner," "Sooners," "OU," and "University of Oklahoma") without authorization. They took the initiative to change our name to "Racing Team" without telling us until now... what the crap is that??

We have three of those trademarks on everything (including "OU" engraved on our tools). If we didn't already have enough stuff to worry about. This is going to cost us a lot of money if they make us change everything we own. We take a lot of pride in our name and representing our school. Obviously they don't care. The point of my post is to see if any other teams have issues with this sort of stuff. Even if it is outside the university.

-Trey
SooneRacing Team?
I hope they don't sue me.

[rtrey]

We're having some trademark legal issues with our team name at the University of Oklahoma. We have been called the Sooner Racing Team for about the last five years. Apparently we've been violating the Student Code at OU by using one of their trademarked names ("Sooner," "Sooners," "OU," and "University of Oklahoma") without authorization. They took the initiative to change our name to "Racing Team" without telling us until now... what the crap is that??

We have three of those trademarks on everything (including "OU" engraved on our tools). If we didn't already have enough stuff to worry about. This is going to cost us a lot of money if they make us change everything we own. We take a lot of pride in our name and representing our school. Obviously they don't care. The point of my post is to see if any other teams have issues with this sort of stuff. Even if it is outside the university.

-Trey
SooneRacing Team?
I hope they don't sue me.

[Denny Trimble]

Don't ask, don't tell... why the heck do they care? Perhaps a diplomatic meeting with the people ("They" who changed your name...?) could straighten things out. Make sure they know you're not making any money off the name, and any money that comes into the program goes towards a legitimate school project.

[CMURacing - Prometheus]

as long as you're a school organization (ie a recognized club) there shouldn't be any problems...i ran into this with our club water polo team, our club cycling team has had problems with trademark stuff, and the trademark people got at our new t-shirts and made them all nutty. but they still let us use the official "Carnegie Mellon" script on stuff.

[Kamil S]

Yeah the restrictions are just amazing. We want to use our school mascot for our logo, turns out there is a crapload of paperwork you have to go through. Also, as Prometheus mentioned, as long as you're a student organization you should be OK.

[J. Schmidt]

We havn't had any problems (yet) at UWP. I have heard, though, that some university logos and such are trademarked by the athletic department (ie football team), not the university itself. I can only imagine how much more difficult it will be to get their permission to use their logo.