A ruling handed down by a U.S. Court of Appeals on Tuesday made it official, USC is not permitted to use the letters USC on their athletic uniforms and apparal. Only USC is permitted to use USC for those purposes.
Confused yet?
I had to do a double take when I saw the news but apparently the University of Southern California trademarked the use of the letters “USC” to represent their school. Following the Court’s decision, the University of South Carolina finds itself in a quandary as to how to represent their own university in short form and whether to press on with the case, appealing their petition to use USC on the school’s baseball team clothing to the Supreme Court.
Fair or not, it appears that trademark law has accomplished exactly what it set out to accomplish; stop subsequent individuals or entities from using a confusingly similar mark to one which is already registered and used in commerce.
And unlike Porky Pig, that’s not all folks! Apparently just winning the right to continue use of the USC letters exclusively was not enough, representatives of the school had to hit the University of South Carolina while they were down. The attorney representing the University of Southern California in the case, Scott Edelman, stated the letters were more deservedly linked to the Trojans’ warrior image than to “a goofy little chicken.”
Ouch!
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