Three simple letters are now trademarked by The Ohio State University.
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has given the OK to the university’s application to control the use of the word THE, WSYX reported.
BREAKING: Ohio State has received a trademark for the word “THE” for use on clothing. @JoshGerben reported first. pic.twitter.com/E8sc2eVTUG
— Darren Rovell (@darrenrovell) June 22, 2022
The trademark applies to clothing like t-shirts and hats when they are used in sports and collegiate athletics, WCMH reported.
That means no other schools’ or sports teams’ apparel apart from OSU’s can have the word THE on it.
The battle over the THE trademark came when Ohio State and Marc Jacobs both wanted to mark products with the word THE, WCMH reported.
The filing was denied in 2019, but OSU refiled saying that THE has been part of the university’s name since 1878 and that THE makes the university different from other institutions, WSYX reported.
The Ohio State University has challenged the use of words, even letters, that school leaders think are theirs in the past.
In 2019, the university took a high school apparel company to court over using the letter “O,” WCMH reported.
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