Will do, thanks! :D

What she said. It's damn obvious they're trying to rip off NPHC. I hope you guys get a fat chunk o' cash from them.

I hate to side with Tom Earp but....
 

...he does have a valid point.

I will first say that I truly don't know what the ultimate outcome will be from this case, but since no copyright or trademark infringement has occured, it's going to be rather difficult for the NPHC to prove such in this case.

Unless the respective NPHC years and colors are registered trademarks of the orgs, it's going to be difficult to prove any damages has occured.

Example: The Ford Motor Company has Motorcraft as a registered trademark of their company. If another company uses similar car parts that Ford uses and puts MotorCARE or Motor CAR on their products, no trademark infringement has occured, and thus Ford cannot sue and reasonably expect to win.

Now, if Converse uses the NPHC orgs names, coats of arms, or other registered trademarks on their shoes, that's another story altogether. But I see no indication that such is being used.

I reserve further comment on this case pending upcoming developments.

I do not know if there is truly a legal basis for the lawsuit, but if nothing else I think the fact that 9 orgs representing a huge consumer base are going public with the fact that they are pi**ed with Converse will be enough.

Actually, you are wrong. Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. has a trademark on the their founding year. Check out their websitehttp://www.alphaphialpha.net/ (view the Licensed Vendors link).

Personally, I think that the more important aspect of the case is the trade dress infringement piece. For those who don't know,

"Section 43(a) of the Lanham Act creates a federal cause of action for unfair competition. This statutory provision prohibits the sale of goods by use of "any word, term, name, symbol, or device, or any combination thereof, or any false designation of origin, false or misleading description of fact, which -- (A) is likely to cause confusion, or to cause mistake, or to deceive as to the affiliation, connection, or association of such person with another person, or as to the origin, sponsorship, or approval of his or her goods, services, or commercial activities by another person. . . ." 15 U.S.C. ? 1125(a) (1988)." Article by Timothy P. Ryan, Copyright News. Trade Dress protection extends beyond copyrighted material and covers unregitered words and marks. I think this gets at the heart of what Converse tried to pull- implying that these items were for NPHC members and hoping that we would beleive they were sanctioned as all NPHC para is supposed to be.

Hello All,
Actually, there does seem to be a legal basis for the claim (based upon my limited knowledge from law school, Trademark law class, and my limited assistance of a few attorneys with a few Trademark issues during my summer stints at firms).

Courts have recognized *colors* as enforceable trade dress, when coupled with a product that the court is willing to acknowlege that you have built up enough goodwill/rep, etc. in to make the color a distinctive symbol, so to speak, for the product. For instance, Corning has trade dress in the pink color of their fiberglass product. The courts have recognized that this trade dress in that shade of pink for the fiberglass product belongs to Corning and has awarded Corning damages in court based on it.

In court, the Council would have to prove that they have built up so much rep in the public eye in the color combo that seeing the color combo on the product (b/c all trade dress and trade mark only goes as far as the actual product that you attempt to attach it to) would cause confusion as to the maker/endorser of the product.

Kimmie1913 hit the head on the nail with the other way that the Council could claim: under false advertisement/misappropriation statute of the Lanham Act 43(a). Basically, it's illegally to intentionally use words, marks, etc. to confuse the public into making them think that manufacturer A created or endorses the product when that is not the case. I think that a claim under 43(a) is stronger.

It really seems that there are at least these two meritorious claims that would at least allow them to avoid failure-to-state-a-legal-claim dismissal in federal court.

SummerChild

I clicked on the link and the licensed vendor page and all it said was this:
The following vendors are the only approved & licensed vendors (valid until December 31, 2003) for Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. Any other vendor selling and/or distributing pariphernilla bearing any of the fraternities registered trademarks & logos should be reported to the Corporate Headquaters at:

It didn't specify specifically what is a registered trademark or logo. Help a nosey sista out! :D

I checked because I was surprised to hear that a year could be tradmarked. I understand how a particular logo containing the year as part of the design could be trademarked, but just the use of a particular year? :confused:

If you look at the bottom of that page you can click on the Word document link and it will show you.

It shows it in the Licensing Packet. Both 1906 and '06 are trademarked. But what caught my eye is the spelling of paraphernalia in the above sentence. Is that a greek spelling or something?

Clarification - Not Necessary to *Register* the Mark/Dress for Protection
 

Hello Rain Man,
Actually, there is two ways that you can get protection under law in the trade mark/trade dress arena. First, you can *register* a mark or dress; second, you can be deemed to have what courts common law protection for a mark or dress (no registration required). To get common law protection, all you have to do is to prove that you have invested enough time, effort and maybe cash toward the goal of ensuring that when a consumer sees your mark or dress with the product or service that you are providing, that the consumer recognizes the connection. Again, the test is whether there is a likelihood of consumer confusion when the other person uses the same or similar mark/dress for the same or similar product.

Again, you don't have to register a mark or dress in order for the law to give you rights in it.

The main distinction in treatment if you do not register your mark/dress is that the law will only provide you with protection for the geographical area that your product and mark/dress covered. This is b/c the law does not expect for person A living in Cali to be familiar with your mark and accompanying product/service if you are only using it in some corner of say, Rhode Island so the law will refuse to find that person in California has infringed when the person could not reasonably even know that you were using the mark/dress for the your product/service. But if you *registered* the mark, the mark would be published online at the USPTO site and published in the trademark registry and everyone in the U.S. would at least be on constructive notice and therefore, the courts would be willing to find infringement, even if the alleged infringer is not in a location where the owner of the mark/dress is doing business.

------

Further, you mentioned that if Ford trademarked "Motorcraft" for use with parts x and another car manufacturer uses "Motor Car" for similar parts x, no trademark infringement has occurred.

I guess that I agree with your example in this case. However, it's not the case (and I'm not sure if you were saying that it is - I couldn't tell) that just b/c a spelling is different or the words are different but they mean the same or sound the same, that a person will be able to avoid a court finding infringement. It's not that easy - remember, the test is consumer confusion, not whether actual word/dress is exactly the same. The courts use a number of factors that will allow them to find trademark/trade dress infringement even if there is a change in spelling or slight change in wording, but a consumer would still be confused into thinking that its the same.
For example, the court uses factors such as sound, sight, spelling, meaning of the wording to also consider whether there has been infringement. These are just some of the factors that go into evaluating whether infringement has occurred.

SC

I was coming back to post more information about why this may be a sustainable (and maybe even winnable) law suit but I see SummerChild has done a great job of that!!

Awwww Kimmie1913!!! To have a real live lawyer like you say that makes a lowly law school student like me feel so great.

Thanks so much. Happy Holidays!
SC

I know some people call it "pari" so whomever wrote it must have thought it was spelled that way too.

When checking my hotmail, I ran across those annoying spam :mad: emails from Big Walt for his history books.

Question.... could Big Walt also be sued? I have never read any of his books, but the covers are printed in each orgs color and they do feature a symbol that is widely know to be associated with each org.

HK, I'm curious to know - what's on the covers?
SC