University forced to re-brand by Detroit Tigers
A Texas university has been forced to re-brand after its attempt to trademark its logo was successfully opposed by major league baseball team Detroit Tigers.
Trinity University, based in San Antonio, applied to register its logo used for athletic competitions, featuring a tiger climbing on top of its initials ‘TU’.
The application was in response to a Twitter account “bashing Trinity” that featured the logo as the avatar.
The university filed to register the trademark in 2011 at the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) but was met with opposition from the baseball team, whose own logo features a tiger climbing through the space of a capital D.
Charles White, vice president for information resources, marketing and communication, told the university’s news publication the Trinitonian: “We objected to the person using our logo because what they were doing was bashing Trinity ... That is when we first realised we didn’t have a trademark, and we decided that we needed something that we could trademark.
“Besides the fact that we could not get it trademarked, it is just a little bit outdated and way too complicated a logo to serve simple, modern purposes,” he said.
It is not the first time the baseball team has opposed a trademark application. In 2012, an opposition claim was filed with the USPTO over attempts by a British retailer Boi Trading to register its ‘Tokyo Tigers’ fashion line.
