Blog Question #11

What does trademark law protect? Provide two sport examples.

A trademark is a distinctive name, symbol, or design that legally identifies a company and its products, or services, and prevents others from using identical or similar marks. The basic purpose of trademark law is to prevent consumer confusion such as a company not affiliated with nike using their swoosh to make more sales. Trademark law is designed to protect merchants reputation and goodwill in the consumer's mind and therefore able to prevent other users from using a similar mark that may cause confusion.

One example of trademark law would be another football team coming into the NFL and using a star as their logo. This symbol has already been used and trademarked by the Dallas Cowboys and another team using the same symbol would likely cause confusion. The Dallas Cowboys would be protected by this law and the other team would be forced to change their logo to something more distinctive.

Another example of trademark law would be a company using a swoosh to identify their products. Nike has already established that this is their logo and anything that is close to that on other products would confuse the consumers as to who is actually selling the product. Since the symbol is trademarked, the company would be forced to change their symbol to avoid confusion.

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncaa/news/story?id=6430091

This article is talking about how various Division I schools are distorting their figures to comply with Title IX. This federal legislation is designed to create equal educational opportunities for women and schools who are not in compliance will face serious consequences if the guidelines are not met. Schools were doing such things as counting women who were unqualified players as real players, counting people on the men's practice squad as women, and counting women as full time players who were no longer competing.