They renewed the trademark in 1990, 1996, and 2002

I'm pretty sure renewal (maintaining the registration) is separate from maintaining the actual mark (which precludes generic status), which is what I was referring to.

Again, there are many other issues involved, which I'm not qualified to speak on - I'm just pointing these out.

Also depends on where the trademark is- most people file for a state and federal trademark, but sometimes some of the older ones are only in the state and they never bothered to go for federal.

I'm too tired to delve into trademark law this evening (got an A in the course in law school ;) ). I will say that if they do have this trademark, the enforcement seems pretty selective, being that tons of other colleges used the 12th man.

no other college uses the 12th man like ATM and I don't even go there. The trademark that ATM was filed federally and they have won cases in the past concerning violations. If it were a state matter they wouldn't have file any reach with the Seattle Seahawks. Also, none of their past grievances were with in state organizations.

if you renew the trademark of a certain thing, it is still yours, and cannot be depicted or used in any way that pertains to the originator's intent. And no, ATM has the exclusive rights to use the 12th Man and anything that it entails, advertising, foundations, etc. etc. I have been to many many schools and football games and have never seen any of them use this in any way than just talking about it or communicating it by word of mouth.

I'm sorry, and your law degree is from where? What background do you have in trademark law?

Several of us have named that our own schools have used the 12th man, cowboy.

I don't see what the big deal is.

After Sunday, who cares for another year?

hehehe

I kept reading "ATM" and seriously thought you were going to post ".. it is also a multi multi million dollar ATM machine"

... as you can tell, I am easily amused :)

I take it you are an attorney. I got accepted by a top law school and double majored in criminal justice and political science, so I have an idea about what I am talking about. I also have several members of my family who are attorneys at very high profile law firms and I have talked to all of them about it. They all have backgrounds in Trademark Law, need I say any more?

Is that your big insult....to call me a cowboy? Or do you think all people from Texas are cowboys? Try harder next time. I have a 14,000 acre ranch in Texas, but I am not a cowboy.

This is mostly true . . . unless the jury finds the trademark invalid, as it would if the term had become generic. Which was my point. You're not addressing what I'm saying here.

Majoring in criminal justice and poli sci doesn't give you an information on trademark law or any credibility that you'd know what you're talking about in trademark law. There's a lot more to it than you're recognizing. You know some of the basics, but there are a lot of nuances that you don't know about.

You keep on acting like an ass... you're continually embarassing yourself and SAE.

did you not read the rest of my post? i said that i had some background but i went to others to get the facts straight? i wasn't being an ass, nor did I say anything negative about you. I am sorry, but i am going to take the word of my family members, some of the top attorneys in Texas over yours. i am not trying to brag by any means, but it is the truth. One of them is in criminal law, the other two are both in business law. They knnow what theyare talking about.

you stereotyped me and called me a cowboy because I am from Texas.

how did I embarass myself?

Yeah, CJ and PoliSci are way hard.

In the going to class hungover every day sort of way.

P.S. Criminal law != trademark law

Did I say anything about them being difficult? moron. actually upper level classes were very difficult.....is this your way of trying to be insulting?

I got accepted to some of the top law schools in the country, i really don't care what you think, I took the best route to prepare myself for what I wanted to study in post grad. I could give a flying f**k what you think.

If you would have actually read my post, you would have seen that I got other opinions from family members who are all very respected attorneys in high profile law firms.

While there's no general need to defend your opinion, this point is not persuasive - mostly b/c you're not addressing the actual legal points presented (which are not, in fact, opinion-based).

You may very well have consulted the patent/trademark guys at Baker Botts - but if you did, you haven't relayed their advice very well. No one is saying that A&M is implicitly wrong - however, I can envision many scenarios in which the trademark is not allowed with reference to their student section, mostly related to VALIDITY concerns, not registration issues.

Note these also would not preclude the '12th man foundation', which you've propped here - note that trademarks only apply in instances in which 'product confusion' would exist. This means the Seahawks could call their fans the '12th man' and not violate the TM for the Foundation.