This is the definitive place to discuss everything that makes life on & off campus so unique in Central Virginia.

Moderators: jcmanson, Sly Fox, BuryYourDuke

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By BJWilliams
Registration Days Posts
#440687
I read it actually...twice just to make sure I had good knowledge of the context on the matter AND waited to post just to make sure my initial incredulity at the response of some didnt cloud my commentary
User avatar
By Purple Haize
Registration Days Posts
#440689
BJWilliams wrote:I read it actually...twice just to make sure I had good knowledge of the context on the matter AND waited to post just to make sure my initial incredulity at the response of some didnt cloud my commentary
So what are your thoughts on Lipscombs comments?
On USC v USC?
User avatar
By flameshaw
Registration Days Posts
#440690
No one knows what may happen in the future and what company, school, etc. may use the LU for purposes that would be bad for the school. If some here think we are doing this, just because we can, or to needlessly throw our weight around, you are p...ing in the wind and uniformed of normal, smart, ordinary, business practices. If your brand is not safe, unique, protected, you are just not a good business person. Kinda like going around with no health or car insurance and hoping that no one will hurt you or you won't get sick.
In addition and probably most important, in many cases one cannot just ignore enforcement and at a later date, decide to enforce a judgement that was ruled in their favor. For instance in NC, it used to be and probably still is, that if one ignores a land boundary or occupying a building, that the one occupying the land/building, even if he did not legally own it, can have/use the property as he pleases, due to lack of enforcement of the original boundary or building occupancy.
Always use protection. :)
User avatar
By Purple Haize
Registration Days Posts
#440691
flameshaw wrote:No one knows what may happen in the future and what company, school, etc. may use the LU for purposes that would be bad for the school. If some here think we are doing this, just because we can, or to needlessly throw our weight around, you are p...ing in the wind and uniformed of normal, smart, ordinary, business practices. If your brand is not safe, unique, protected, you are just not a good business person. Kinda like going around with no health or car insurance and hoping that no one will hurt you or you won't get sick.
In addition and probably most important, in many cases one cannot just ignore enforcement and at a later date, decide to enforce a judgement that was ruled in their favor. For instance in NC, it used to be and probably still is, that if one ignores a land boundary, that the one occupying the land, even if he did not legally own it, can have/use the property as he pleases, due to lack of enforcement of the original boundary.
Always use protection. :)
So how exactly was their LU usage negatively affecting ours? Are we going after EVERY University that starts with the letter L and telling them to cease and desist? You say Smart and Ordinary. I say Capricious and un needed. I know all about branding and guerrilla marketing. Not sure there is a case here for that, but hey they can do what they want and to heck with the consequences. I mean we really showed them didn't we. Aren't you proud? Wouldn't even negotiate a resolution. That's some sound hardball business practices right there.
User avatar
By flameshaw
Registration Days Posts
#440692
Purple Haize wrote:
flameshaw wrote:No one knows what may happen in the future and what company, school, etc. may use the LU for purposes that would be bad for the school. If some here think we are doing this, just because we can, or to needlessly throw our weight around, you are p...ing in the wind and uniformed of normal, smart, ordinary, business practices. If your brand is not safe, unique, protected, you are just not a good business person. Kinda like going around with no health or car insurance and hoping that no one will hurt you or you won't get sick.
In addition and probably most important, in many cases one cannot just ignore enforcement and at a later date, decide to enforce a judgement that was ruled in their favor. For instance in NC, it used to be and probably still is, that if one ignores a land boundary, that the one occupying the land, even if he did not legally own it, can have/use the property as he pleases, due to lack of enforcement of the original boundary.
Always use protection. :)
So how exactly was their LU usage negatively affecting ours? Are we going after EVERY University that starts with the letter L and telling them to cease and desist? You say Smart and Ordinary. I say Capricious and un needed. I know all about branding and guerrilla marketing. Not sure there is a case here for that, but hey they can do what they want and to heck with the consequences. I mean we really showed them didn't we. Aren't you proud? Wouldn't even negotiate a resolution. That's some sound hardball business practices right there.
Again...................... real slow, it has nothing to do with how "they" may negatively effect our use of the logo. It is how someone/anyone else may want to use the logo/brand. Maybe for some reason a group of Lesbians United wanted to use the LU logo/brand. Believe me, weirder things have happened, many times. What then? What do you think the court would say when we stood up and said, "your honor, we have a gentleman's agreement with Lipscomb University, that they can continue to use the LU brand, that we have spent time, money and effort to copyright, because they are a good school and we like them. However, we have a problem with the Lesbians United group using our intellectual property, because we don't agree with them". We would be laughed out of court and lose our intellectual property. This is undeniable. So I will continue to say it is a smart, ordinary, prudent, business practice. Unfortunately, many business practices and laws are hardball. I don't particularly like it, but it is what it is. I can't imagine people considering this as capricious, bullying, arrogant. etc. But then again, there seems to be a lot of people intent on looking for things to disagree with now days.
By LUconn
Registration Days Posts
#440693
Purple Haize wrote:
If you actually had clarity of thought about the process that would help. Have you even looked at the article regarding Lipscomb? The USC v USC decision? If not, it would help. If so, you might want to reread them and discuss where the issue was.

This is the money quote from Lipscomb
"“In subsequent weeks, outside legal counsel was retained, and several attempts were made at reasonable negotiation. In the end, there were two options: one, initiate federal court litigation to adjudicate the rights to “LU” or, two, discontinue its use. The cost and distraction to take the issue to court would be substantial and the outcome could still be negative. Therefore, the decision was made to immediately transition away from the use of “LU” campus wide.”

From the USC case
Although South Carolina will no longer be able to use an “SC” logo, it may continue to use “USC” logos in accordance with its concurrent use agreement with Southern California that allows both schools to use “USC” logos in their respective geographical territories. Interestingly, “SC” logos are known to be used by sixteen other colleges in the United States, but the other schools were found to have an insignificant effect on the strength of Southern California’s registered mark.

Discuss amongst yourself the similarity and difference. Study
woah woah woah, are you saying we should have the ARROGANCE to think those other schools are insignificant in comparison to us? That's the word I keep seeing used.
By flamehunter
Registration Days Posts
#440694
flameshaw wrote:
Purple Haize wrote:
flameshaw wrote:No one knows what may happen in the future and what company, school, etc. may use the LU for purposes that would be bad for the school. If some here think we are doing this, just because we can, or to needlessly throw our weight around, you are p...ing in the wind and uniformed of normal, smart, ordinary, business practices. If your brand is not safe, unique, protected, you are just not a good business person. Kinda like going around with no health or car insurance and hoping that no one will hurt you or you won't get sick.
In addition and probably most important, in many cases one cannot just ignore enforcement and at a later date, decide to enforce a judgement that was ruled in their favor. For instance in NC, it used to be and probably still is, that if one ignores a land boundary, that the one occupying the land, even if he did not legally own it, can have/use the property as he pleases, due to lack of enforcement of the original boundary.
Always use protection. :)
So how exactly was their LU usage negatively affecting ours? Are we going after EVERY University that starts with the letter L and telling them to cease and desist? You say Smart and Ordinary. I say Capricious and un needed. I know all about branding and guerrilla marketing. Not sure there is a case here for that, but hey they can do what they want and to heck with the consequences. I mean we really showed them didn't we. Aren't you proud? Wouldn't even negotiate a resolution. That's some sound hardball business practices right there.
Again...................... real slow, it has nothing to do with how "they" may negatively effect our use of the logo. It is how someone/anyone else may want to use the logo/brand. Maybe for some reason a group of Lesbians United wanted to use the LU logo/brand. Believe me, weirder things have happened, many times. What then? What do you think the court would say when we stood up and said, "your honor, we have a gentleman's agreement with Lipscomb University, that they can continue to use the LU brand, that we have spent time, money and effort to copyright, because they are a good school and we like them. However, we have a problem with the Lesbians United group using our intellectual property, because we don't agree with them". We would be laughed out of court and lose our intellectual property. This is undeniable. So I will continue to say it is a smart, ordinary, prudent, business practice. Unfortunately, many business practices and laws are hardball. I don't particularly like it, but it is what it is. I can't imagine people considering this as capricious, bullying, arrogant. etc. But then again, there seems to be a lot of people intent on looking for things to disagree with now days.
+1 Well said.
User avatar
By Purple Haize
Registration Days Posts
#440696
Lipscomb University and Lesbians United are two entirely different things. If you can't see that maybe you should speed up. In your kangaroo court, we wouldn't be laughed at if we actually had an arrangement with Lipscomb, Lafayette, Lamar or anyone else.
I'm not saying this type of thing isn't a routine business practice but that doesn't mean everyone does it all of the time. I'm positive, and its insinuated in the article, that an accommodation could be reached. That's the route I wish we would have more vigorously pursued. Maybe if they were Baptist instead of Church of Christ we could have spoke the same language.
By ALUmnus
Registration Days Posts
#440699
Purple Haize wrote: Maybe if they were Baptist instead of Church of Christ we could have spoke the same language.
That's funny that you still think our school makes any decision based on our said faith.

I don't think we could have made any type of "arrangement" with those schools and be allowed to block other organizations. The courts these days don't favor kindly to discrimination. It basically has to be all or nothing.

Remember the whole WWF thing? NOBODY thought of the World Wildlife Fund in regards to WWF, nobody. But the wrestling biz was forced to change it's name, at great cost to their brand at the time. Now they've recovered, but you can see how important securing a brand is. If we didn't do it, someone else could have.
User avatar
By Purple Haize
Registration Days Posts
#440700
Sarcasm escapes you doesn't it?
I was thinking about the WWE v WWF case as well. In that case their was a logo design involved. But that is a great case to study. Vince McMahon could change the name of his company more easily than a University could. That also plays into your thoughts about coming to to arrangements with one entity and not another.
By Yacht Rock
Registration Days Posts
#440707
Unfortunately, when these things are dealt with in court, if you don't protect yourself from the little guy, the courts won't rule in your favor when you have larger issues regarding your trademark with a bigger guy.

At issue is that a judge would ask, "If this branding was so important to you, why didn't you defend it against school X?"

It would be nice if we could count on our legal system to follow the spirit of the law and allow grace in how these things are handled but typically that is not the case.

This is how many companies lose rights all the time. As far as how Liberty is handling it, maybe they needed some extra homework for some kids over in the law school. Who knows.

I look at it like this. Since we registered LU we had the right to use it. Any other school, had their branding been important, could have foreseen that as well and could have registered it before we did. Therefore while it's unfortunate it had to happen, I think it was necessary and not unethical.
User avatar
By Purple Haize
Registration Days Posts
#440708
Yacht Rock wrote:Unfortunately, when these things are dealt with in court, if you don't protect yourself from the little guy, the courts won't rule in your favor when you have larger issues regarding your trademark with a bigger guy.

At issue is that a judge would ask, "If this branding was so important to you, why didn't you defend it against school X?"

It would be nice if we could count on our legal system to follow the spirit of the law and allow grace in how these things are handled but typically that is not the case.

This is how many companies lose rights all the time. As far as how Liberty is handling it, maybe they needed some extra homework for some kids over in the law school. Who knows.

I look at it like this. Since we registered LU we had the right to use it. Any other school, had their branding been important, could have foreseen that as well and could have registered it before we did. Therefore while it's unfortunate it had to happen, I think it was necessary and not unethical.
For the record I never said it was unethical.
User avatar
By flameshaw
Registration Days Posts
#440712
Yacht Rock wrote:Unfortunately, when these things are dealt with in court, if you don't protect yourself from the little guy, the courts won't rule in your favor when you have larger issues regarding your trademark with a bigger guy.

At issue is that a judge would ask, "If this branding was so important to you, why didn't you defend it against school X?"

It would be nice if we could count on our legal system to follow the spirit of the law and allow grace in how these things are handled but typically that is not the case.

This is how many companies lose rights all the time. As far as how Liberty is handling it, maybe they needed some extra homework for some kids over in the law school. Who knows.

I look at it like this. Since we registered LU we had the right to use it. Any other school, had their branding been important, could have foreseen that as well and could have registered it before we did. Therefore while it's unfortunate it had to happen, I think it was necessary and not unethical.
El correcto mi amigo. :)
By Yacht Rock
Registration Days Posts
#440717
Purple Haize wrote:
Yacht Rock wrote:Unfortunately, when these things are dealt with in court, if you don't protect yourself from the little guy, the courts won't rule in your favor when you have larger issues regarding your trademark with a bigger guy.

At issue is that a judge would ask, "If this branding was so important to you, why didn't you defend it against school X?"

It would be nice if we could count on our legal system to follow the spirit of the law and allow grace in how these things are handled but typically that is not the case.

This is how many companies lose rights all the time. As far as how Liberty is handling it, maybe they needed some extra homework for some kids over in the law school. Who knows.

I look at it like this. Since we registered LU we had the right to use it. Any other school, had their branding been important, could have foreseen that as well and could have registered it before we did. Therefore while it's unfortunate it had to happen, I think it was necessary and not unethical.
For the record I never said it was unethical.
I know you didn't. I think you were insinuating it was a poor judgement call. I understand your reasonings too. As Christians it is tough to find grace in the legal machine and the things you have to do as an organization. "There are no winners today..."
User avatar
By Purple Haize
Registration Days Posts
#440720
That's not true. We are all winners and we all get ribbons and trophies !

I clearly understand why they did it. But I disagree with the necessity of that decision. At the end of the day it's all about the Golden Rule. He with the gold, makes the rules
User avatar
By flamesfilmguy
Registration Days Posts
#440723
I'm with Supe and Purp. While I understand the thought process. Execution(pun intended) of branding could have been handled way better.
By LUconn
Registration Days Posts
#440726
http://www.luminationnetwork.com/2013/1 ... -initials/
Liberty University general counsel David Corry shed light on Liberty’s decision to enforce ownership of its trademark of the “LU” abbreviation.

“Under Federal Trademark Law, if you fail to police the use of your marks, you risk losing some of your rights – some of the protection that federal law gives you,” Corry said.

“Liberty University, for some time, has had copyright on the ‘L’ and the ‘U’ – the capital ‘L’ and the ‘U’ – next to each other in connection with higher education.

“When it has become aware of the use of those two letters in the connection of higher ed, in trade, it has approached the entity that’s using it and asked them to either bring their use into a license agreement, so it’s done with express permission and under certain conditions, or to abandon the use.

“We were in the process of negotiating some license with Lipscomb, but, in the end, I think Lipscomb decided that it would prefer to phase out its use and to end all electronic use immediately.”

Corry said he believes that Lipscomb will cease restocking any apparel or other merchandise that brandishes the “LU” logo.

He said that Lipscomb’s decision to phase out the acronym was good enough for Liberty.

“That was their decision, and when they indicated that they would do that, we didn’t see the need to prosecute any kind of infringement action and thought it was a satisfactory resolution of the matter,” Corry said.

He was complimentary of the way Lipscomb handled the situation.

“We thought that the folks at Lipscomb were very polite and a pleasure to deal with on the matter,” Corry said. “There wasn’t any animus, and everyone was perfectly gentlemanly.”
AND WE WONDER WHY PEOPLE DONT LIKE US. Am I right? Oh maybe we shouldn't take the tone of an article written by one side of the story as gospel anymore.
User avatar
By jbock13
Registration Days Posts
#440727
BJWilliams wrote:Can't win for losing sometimes...Liberty copyrights LU and makes an effort to protect itself, its "no wonder nobody likes us" and "Man this is another horrible PR move". If somebody else copyrighted the LU and the university ended up in some protracted arbitration process, then the comments probably are about why the university did not make a proactive effort to protect part of its brand or some other such nonsense...and it STILL would be about "no wonder nobody likes us". Makes me shake my head the thought process of people around here sometimes.
If it's constantly perceived as a bad PR move, maybe it is a bad PR move? Think carefully about what I just said there.
User avatar
By Purple Haize
Registration Days Posts
#440729
LUconn wrote:http://www.luminationnetwork.com/2013/1 ... -initials/
Liberty University general counsel David Corry shed light on Liberty’s decision to enforce ownership of its trademark of the “LU” abbreviation.

“Under Federal Trademark Law, if you fail to police the use of your marks, you risk losing some of your rights – some of the protection that federal law gives you,” Corry said.

“Liberty University, for some time, has had copyright on the ‘L’ and the ‘U’ – the capital ‘L’ and the ‘U’ – next to each other in connection with higher education.

“When it has become aware of the use of those two letters in the connection of higher ed, in trade, it has approached the entity that’s using it and asked them to either bring their use into a license agreement, so it’s done with express permission and under certain conditions, or to abandon the use.

“We were in the process of negotiating some license with Lipscomb, but, in the end, I think Lipscomb decided that it would prefer to phase out its use and to end all electronic use immediately.”

Corry said he believes that Lipscomb will cease restocking any apparel or other merchandise that brandishes the “LU” logo.

He said that Lipscomb’s decision to phase out the acronym was good enough for Liberty.

“That was their decision, and when they indicated that they would do that, we didn’t see the need to prosecute any kind of infringement action and thought it was a satisfactory resolution of the matter,” Corry said.

He was complimentary of the way Lipscomb handled the situation.

“We thought that the folks at Lipscomb were very polite and a pleasure to deal with on the matter,” Corry said. “There wasn’t any animus, and everyone was perfectly gentlemanly.”
AND WE WONDER WHY PEOPLE DONT LIKE US. Am I right? Oh maybe we shouldn't take the tone of an article written by one side of the story as gospel anymore.
They decided not to pursue it because it was going to be too big a financial burden. I wonder what the Lipscomb people thought of us :dontgetit
User avatar
By BJWilliams
Registration Days Posts
#440738
It may well be...but instead of getting all butthurt soon as something as some report comes out and posting a thread on here about it, maybe it would serve you better to get both sides of the story (as LUConn just posted the other side)
User avatar
By Purple Haize
Registration Days Posts
#440739
BJWilliams wrote:It may well be...but instead of getting all butthurt soon as something as some report comes out and posting a thread on here about it, maybe it would serve you better to get both sides of the story (as LUConn just posted the other side)
Did you just make a homophobic slur :shock: better hope ATrain doesn't see it.

And it's not 'It may well be' it actually IS because that's what was stated in the first article.
User avatar
By BJWilliams
Registration Days Posts
#440743
That was for jbock who had me carefully note what he had posted...and really..does everything have to be labeled potentially racist or potentially sexist or potentially homophobic? Even in an attempt to be funny?
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