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Tshirt Trademark - Common Words
- Thread Starter dsanchez
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While I never provide specific answers without a full and proper legal consultation and a full review.
This is a great question.
Off the top of my head, the answer I think is "yes" but you would not be trademarking the heart - you'd be trademarking the look of the phrase with your artistically rendered version. I didn't read extensively on this issue but the articles I'm reading point to some famous "I Heart NY" or "I ♥ NY" trademark infringement lawsuit - a mark owned by the state of New York.
This article in Business Week discusses something along the lines of differences of appearance concerning a lawsuit for an "I ♥ NC" lawsuit and also references the "I ♥ Yoga" lawsuit where New York State shut down a Bikram Yoga based effort that used the instantly recognizable heart.
There is more about it in Wikipedia as well, even though it's not always the most reliable source.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Love_New_York
So my gut feeling here is that if you design a shirt that doesn't make people instantly think of the famous black typewriter text, big red heart "I heart NY" t-shirt and that there might be an association, you might be fine with a nice blue Arial font and tye dye colored heart.
This is a great question.
Off the top of my head, the answer I think is "yes" but you would not be trademarking the heart - you'd be trademarking the look of the phrase with your artistically rendered version. I didn't read extensively on this issue but the articles I'm reading point to some famous "I Heart NY" or "I ♥ NY" trademark infringement lawsuit - a mark owned by the state of New York.
This article in Business Week discusses something along the lines of differences of appearance concerning a lawsuit for an "I ♥ NC" lawsuit and also references the "I ♥ Yoga" lawsuit where New York State shut down a Bikram Yoga based effort that used the instantly recognizable heart.
There is more about it in Wikipedia as well, even though it's not always the most reliable source.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Love_New_York
So my gut feeling here is that if you design a shirt that doesn't make people instantly think of the famous black typewriter text, big red heart "I heart NY" t-shirt and that there might be an association, you might be fine with a nice blue Arial font and tye dye colored heart.
Here's one more great article in the Wall Street Journal on the same topic I remembered reading...
http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2007/04/02/we-heart-trademark-disputes-involving-people-named-stewart/
http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2007/04/02/we-heart-trademark-disputes-involving-people-named-stewart/
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