Quote:
Originally Posted by graciegirl
It is illegal to sell something that has a registered trademark.
|
If it is licensed it is not illegal or how would all the sporting goods stores sell LICENSED football, basketball or baseball shirts or stores sell Tony Burch or Coach or any other designer named products. You may be thinking of UNLICENSED and not UNREGISTERED. If they are counterfeit unlicensed copies that's another story. Registration is for the name like NFL, Gucci, Chanel etc etc. As for the ones on Amazon they DO NOT look licensed (the ones with the actual logo) but I am guessing you can simply put the name of any city on a shirt legally as long as you don't use it's registered LOGO.
From Legalzoom:
The city names are neither trademarked nor trademarkable. Names are made official through the United States government, the U.S. Board on Geographic Names.
As a rule these names are owned by the people of the United States, since it is a government of the people, by the people and for the people. With few exceptions, no government names, photographs or other such materials are protected by trademark or copyright laws,
although they may be protected in other ways for instance by being classified as state secrets.
Now note however that a trademark may overlap a place name and be protected as a trademark of that company. For instance Hershey PA, where Hershey Chocolate is. While the government’s Board on Geographic Names doesn’t have a stake in you using the name of that town, the chocolate company has a stake in keeping you from starting a competing chocolate or foods company using their trademarked name. Further, the US Patent and Trademark office will generally reject a name that is solely based on its location as described in the link below. While “New York Pizza” would be rejected, the “New York Jets” football team and clothing company “Donna Karan New York (DKNY)” aren’t a problem.