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Deal may lead to joint marketing agreement
By Ann Brown



January 17, 2007 -- A three-year battle over trademark infringement and deceptive trade practices between athletic shoe and apparel maker Converse Inc. and four black fraternities and two black sororities is finally coming to a close.

In 2003, sororities Alpha Kappa Alpha and Delta Sigma Theta and fraternities Alpha Phi Alpha, Kappa Alpha Psi, Omega Psi Phi, and Phi Beta Sigma, filed the suit in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas, Dallas Division alleging that the Nike Inc.-owned sports apparel company manufactured, marketed, and sold sneakers called GREEKPAK that contained "the identical founding year and organizational colors" of the fraternal associations.


Converse, which began advertising the GREEKPAK line in fall 2003, argued in court papers that the colors and founding years, when used together, were not trademarked by the organizations.
Under the settlement, Converse acknowledges that the fraternities and sororities have exclusive rights to the marks, according to a report in the Dallas Morning News.

"The lawsuit had to work its way through the legal system," says Sam Hamilton, chairman of the organizations' Council of Presidents and president of Kappa Alpha Psi.

"We are in the final stages of having everyone sign off," Hamilton says.
The groups will negotiate a licensing agreement with Converse, according to the Morning News. Converse spokeswoman Cheryl Calegari, said she can’t comment on the settlement until it’s finalized.

A deal to market products in conjunction with the organizations might not be so profitable for Converse, according to Lawrence Ross, a branding strategist with Minneapolis-based consumer trend research company Iconoculture.

"In order the deal to be cost effective for Converse, since they will be sharing the revenue, would be to mass market the shoes," says Ross who is also author of The Divine Nine: The History of African American Fraternities and Sororities and a member of Alpha Phi Alpha. "But I would think that this might upset the members of the organizations to see the general public wearing their colors."

But says Ross, "One way to approach it would be to make the shoes exclusive or one-offs. They don’t want to flood the market and devalue the marks. Then they could move into other apparel with the groups, and I would think for Converse the move after this would be to deal with the HBCUs themselves and produce product, such as a Howard sneaker."
The fraternities and sororities are optimistic. "We could see developing the relationship further," Hamilton says. When the first product does roll out, according to Hamilton, the revenue generated would go to maintaining the organizations and to scholarships. "Black fraternities and sororities carry a lot prestige among young black men and women," says Ross. "But we haven’t taken advantage of the cache of our trademarks. With organizations actively looking for revenue streams for their causes it will be interesting to see how the Converse deal plays out."