Trademark Trolls Stops University Nicknames 102
chipperdog writes: Trademark and patent trolls have even found their way in complicating a university nickname selection, with people admitting to registering nicknames with the trademark office just to stop them or get rich off of them. The Grand Forks Herald reports: "The search for a new University of North Dakota nickname hit a potential new stumbling block on Monday, when former Bismarck mayor Marlan 'Hawk' Haakenson registered trade names for several of the Fighting Sioux replacement options under consideration. Haakenson said he registered the trade names in an attempt to interfere with the nickname selection process, though a UND official said such an attempt was unlikely to succeed."
"found there way" (Score:5, Insightful)
Can't the editors even tell the difference between there, their and they're?
Re:"found there way" (Score:5, Funny)
I'm still trying to parse "Trademark Trolls Stops University Nicknames".
Re:"found there way" (Score:5, Funny)
Their Their, know calm done.
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Slashdot Editors: "Wee right goode sew ewe dont half two!"
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You leave there grammar out of this, she's a nice old lady.
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Can't the editors even tell the difference between there, their and they're?
And the answer is "no". That would require either a minor attention to detail, or an editor with a 4th-grade education, or both.
As a former tech writer this kind of thing drives me up a wall, but I've learned to just grit my teeth and move on. If they haven't learned how to spell or how to proofread by now, they're never going to. Just smile, shake your head, and have another drink. :)
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This summary is incomprehensible (Score:4, Informative)
Perhaps it means more to people in the US, but to a rest-of-the worlder this summary is entirely incomprehensible. In fact it is the most meaningless summary I have read in around ten years of reading Slashdot headlines.
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It's incomprehensible even to people in the US.
Re:This summary is incomprehensible (Score:5, Informative)
University of North Dakota's sports teams nickname was the "Fighting Sioux," a reference to the Sioux tribe that owned the state before the white man came. It's considered a bit dickish fort white conquerers to name their sports teams after their conquests, so the body governing college sports ordered them to come up with a new one or get permission from the Sioux. The bands on one reservation voted yes, the other reservation refused to hold a vote, so UND had to change it's nickname.
Which led to a convoluted bureaucratic process which die-hard fans do their best to derail in futile hope that the regulators (the NCAA) or the recalcitrant Sioux on that other reservation will give up and let them go back to being the Fighting Sioux.
This troll is apparently one of them, and he's trademarked the most likely new nicknames.
Re: This summary is incomprehensible (Score:1)
I marvel that you put that much effort into describing this worthless article.
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Didn't bother reading the article.
I just follow college sports in the US, with a particular interest in Ice Hockey; and the UND Ice Hockey team is actually quite good. There's lots of news about what those guys will get called.
Re:This summary is incomprehensible (Score:5, Funny)
"This troll is apparently one of them, and he's trademarked the most likely new nicknames"
If he threatens legal action, tell him to Sioux and be damned.
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This troll is apparently one of them, and he's trademarked the most likely new nicknames.
They should change their name to the Haakenson-Fuckers.
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Re:This summary is incomprehensible (Score:4, Interesting)
Which is fine, as long as he is a university sports association, of course if he is not, than the trademark just shows a dick with no understanding of law being a dick. So blocked not so much and courts will toss it out.
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What they ought to do is just rename the team the "Fighting Dakotans", since the NCAA has already ruled that they can continue to use the word Dakota.
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Because it's not a sign of respect. They used that name because football teams tended to represent themselves as vicious and mean in the early days of the sport. Thus being named after savages was common, which is why those tribes with a more barbaric stereotype had their names borrowed. If we were trying to honor the Sioux, we'd name school libraries after them, not some stupid school sports teams for stupid drunks to watch.
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Have you noticed how libraries are being treated recently? I'd hardly call that an honor.
Re:This summary is incomprehensible (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually - you ought to ask the warriors of the tribes how they feel about being so honored. Yeah, you can ask the women too, but most definitely talk to the warriors.
All that you have stated here, is that you do not respect warriors. You are incapable of understanding the honor of being remembered as great fighters. If you live someplace where there are no Native Americans to speak to, then you should at least talk to some military veterans. We are everywhere, there's not a chance in hell that you can't find some veterans to talk to.
As for myself, I have Native American blood in my veins, I live close to reservations, and I've worked with members of several tribes for much of my adult life. With few exceptions, all of the American Indians I've ever known take some pride in those teams named after the tribes. I hear some objections, but the overwhelming majority are proud of their fighting history.
The single strongest objection to the use of tribal names, is that the pale faces don't really appreciate the history of the tribes, much less the culture. Mostly, they laugh at the white man for being ignorant.
Re:This summary is incomprehensible (Score:4, Insightful)
Odd that the site seems to begin history in 1500. I guess that's as far back as they can dig. Odd also that they only cite climate change as a force that might push a tribe out of it's ancestral home. They just ignore the fact that other tribes were competing for resources. For instance, when the Mayan civilization collapsed, a lot of Mayans moved to the southeast US, displacing a lot of "native" tribes. As the Azteca rose to power, they also displaced a lot of other tribes. And, in more recent times, the Apache were pushed into the Azteca sphere of influence when they were pushed south by other competing tribes.
Yeah - climate change affects a lot, but pressure from other groups of humans have always played an important role in the Americas. The arrival of the Europeans simply put a different face on an ages old problem. That problem being, "What do we do when we meet competition to strong to compete against?"
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It's a school sports team, it's not an honor to have your name used by them. So the Sioux stand along side the Grizzlies, Bulldogs, Sharks, Hornets, Gators, Wildcats, Buccaneers, etc. Yes, there are more mild football team names, but I never see those as honorific names. Almost inevitably they are animals or a group with a dangerous reputation. Having a name that's actually an honor to a person or group is extremely rare.
It's purely revisionist and anti-PC reactionism to claim that these are names to ho
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No, the revisionism is coming from those that fought to change the name.
If you did ANY research into this particular case, you would see that the school was given the name by the Lakota and Dakota tribes in the 60s, during a ceremony performed by the tribes themselves. The PC and revisionary actions were done by the nazi-like NCAA when it heavy-handedly forced UND to change it's nickname. Eventually, the tribes themselves were given the chance to enter their opinions into the record; one of them, the Spir
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That'd probably work.
Re:really dumb (Score:1)
Intent to interfere should be infringement (Score:2)
That should count as Trademark infringement right there - even if the legitimate user hadn't registered or even decided the name yet.
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No, it shouldn't. There is no trademark that can be infringed yet, so there can be no trademark infringement.
Re:Intent to interfere should be infringement (Score:5, Interesting)
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Insider? As far as I can tell the five shortlisted names are public knowledge.
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If he was being serious then, yes, I might agree. But unless I'm reading this situation completely wrong, it's a guy trying to troll a rival school. I'd bet he knows he won't actually get to keep the trademarks, and is just trying to give some shit to a rival school. If so, he's thrown away a bit of money, but no real harm was done. It reminds me of the time someone registered mizzou.us and made it redirect to ku.edu. That's probably the only clever thing a kU grad has ever done, and it's actually pretty da
Re:Intent to interfere should be infringement (Score:5, Insightful)
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If he actually was granted the trademarks and tried to defend them, then yes, he should face a penalty for wasting someone's money in a frivolous lawsuit. In this particular case, that would be the money of North Dakota taxpayers who fund UND. But simply trying to register the trademarks, which really should be denied, really isn't hurting anyone. He's throwing away some of his own money, but that's about it. I highly doubt he's serious about defending the trademarks in court, and I think he's just saying t
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who would type mizzouinto his address bar?
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From the fn article: "Haakenson, who attended North Dakota State University but says he's a supporter of the Fighting Sioux nickname..."
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UND and NDSU are, indeed, rivals. There's actually a trophy for the rivalry, called the Nickel Trophy. Haakenson did actually attend NDSU, as your quote says. However, I'm obviously wrong about his motivations here since the article says as much and I clearly just skimmed the article or didn't pick up on it due to lack of sleep. I'm a little embarrassed about being dead wrong and posting more than once about it.
It's a waste of public money to actually defend this through trademarks. It's doomed to failure.
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Not quite. He's not from a rival school and he's not trolling. He's an alumnus...
University of North Dakota and North Dakota State University are not the same school.
Sounds to me (Score:2)
Like this guy in volunteering for a campus-wide beatdown.
Or maybe having his car reassembled in his living room some night.
Or having all the locks on his house and car threadlocked.
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Actually, I read TFA, just because the whole thing didn't seem to make any sense to me. It turns out that the University of North Dakota nickname was "The Fighting Sioux". The NCAA ordered them to change the nickname, probably because of complaints from the Sioux Nation, but a lot of folks still want to keep the old nickname. A committee came up with a few dorky suggestions, so some guy who wants to keep the old nickname trademarked the new suggestions to block the change.
In the US, the University of No
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That's close, but not quite correct.
The NCAA ordered all schools using Native American nicknames to change otherwise they would face certain penalties from the NCAA. The exception is for schools with the support of local tribes, which is how Florida State gets to be the Seminoles and, I believe, Utah gets to stay the Utes. UND wasn't so lucky as the Sioux didn't give their blessing to continued use of the name.
The guy registering the trademarks is actually an ND State grad (source: http://www.startribune.co [startribune.com]
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Are university nicknames somehow mandated by law? Or why are they searching for one? Searching a mascott, ok. But there's nothing more pathetic that someone trying to give himself a nickname.
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In the US, the name of the university football team is used as the nickname and the mascot. So, for example, the Princeton's football team are called the "Tigers". At a game, someone will dress up in a tiger suit and bounce around with the cheerleaders as the mascot. The university also uses the tiger theme to give the students common identity, and after you graduate, the university will send you letters asking for donations. Which are decorated by little tiger logos. Animals are popular nicknames.
How
Re:Sounds to me (Score:5, Funny)
"The NCAA, a non-governmental organization which oversees college sports in the US considers this to be in bad taste"
In other words they have reservations.
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Bada-Ching!
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But shouldn't they still look for a mascot first? In time, after and if that proofs successful, a nickname might be derived from that. Nicknames are given. Everything else feels just plain wrong. Anyone remembers "Grandmaster B" from "married with children" or When Homer Simpson changed his name to "Max Power"? Tells much more about what you NOT are than about what you are.
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American college football does not have to make sense. Check out this book review from The Economist:
http://www.economist.com/news/... [economist.com]
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thx.
Though I have to admit that I'm slightly excited at the prospect of (maybe) going to a Penn State game in a few weeks. Well, I might be able to find out myself....
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Wouldn't that get the MPAA after them? Or has the trademark for that cartoon character been abandoned?
Is this really trademark trolling? (Score:1)
I suppose it's trolling, in the sense of trying to troll a rival intrastate school. I'm assuming UND and North Dakota State have a rivalry, as is the case in many states. The NCAA has cracked down on the use of Native American names for collegiate teams. Florida State gets to remain the Seminoles and I think Utah can stay the Utes. But many other schools haven't been able to keep their names, and UND is one of them. This guy is trying to register many potential names in order to keep his rival school from c
In English, please (Score:3)
Trademark Trolls Stops University Nicknames
Trademark and patent trolls have even found there way
Why would a nickname be subject to a trademark? (Score:1)
You do not choose your own Nickname - it is what someone starts calling you, others follow suite and the name 'sticks'. Also it is an unofficial name. In any case, a trademark only applies to specified 'trades', and it is possible for different companies to register the same trademark for different uses - for example 'Apple' records and computers. So, unless these trolls are educational establishments, their registration of the trademarks (in other areas) would not prevent the University from using it.
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In this case, nicknames are the names used by the school's athletic teams in intercollegiate athletics. My school, the University of Missouri, competes under the name Tigers. For large universities, it's actually one of the most recognizable aspects of the school for the general public. I'll bet most people not from Missouri or who didn't attend the school don't know much about them academically. But if they follow college sports at all, they've probably heard of the Missouri Tigers.
However, a few schools d
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On the North Dakota Secretary of State's website, there are five registered entities in good standing that include Roughriders, including a motorcycle club, an apothecary and a welding company.
Taken (Score:1)
> replacement nicknames for "Fightin' Sioux" trademarked
So some scammer pre-registered "The Not-Fightin' Self-Abasing European-DNA'd Getalongers"? Rats!
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What do patent lawyers have to do with trademarks?
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But again, a patent lawyer would not deal in trademarks as they are not the same thing.
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Summary makes no mentions of patents.
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There, their, they're now.
Don't go getting all worked up over a few simple grammar errors.
Unless my understanding of trademark law is off (Score:2)
And I'll admit I'm not a lawyer, I don't see how this works. You can't trademark in a vacuum; you have to be trademarking the name of a product. That's why it's called a "trademark". And what's more, a trademark only covers trying to sell the same type of product under that name (which is why you can have Apple Records and Apple Computer). So unless this guy owns a university and is trademarking nicknames for it, I don't see how this can interfere with UND at all.
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That being said, this guy's plan only looks like it works if the University committee is not aware of what they are doing (or wants to use it as an e
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According to the article, the trademarks were filed as "Real Estate - Personal." So as long as UND does not use those terms for real estate Haakenson just wasted his money.
And it concerns... (Score:2)
...both people who might possibly care what the nickname of UND is?
Excellent decision by the bands who refused to vote.
Why isn't there a requirement to use the name? (Score:1)
Aargh (Score:2)
>> even found there way in complicating a
I'm seeing this error so frequently now in written American English that I'm genuinely wondering if US schools don't bother teaching or enforcing the difference between "their" and "there" any more. Is this actually true?
He registered trade NAMES, not trademarks (Score:1)
This has nothing at all to do with trademarks. The ex-mayor of Bismarck registered several trade names, which are not the same thing as trademarks. UND does business as UND and not as the nickname of the school, so all Haakenson has done is make a fool of himself, this won't affect anything if UND happens to pick a school nickname that is the same as one of the trade names registered.
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Have some Jazz [youtube.com].