Trademarks
The University of Iowa has gotten some bad press lately. It’s been reported as the big bad university sending its lawyers after innocent folks who are simply using the tiger hawk and other athletic logos in making (and selling) face masks to help people during the global pandemic.
But as with most things, it’s not that simple.
Any entity that has a trademark for its logo or brand is legally required to aggressively stop others from using it without permission. Otherwise, the trademark can be lost. If you have a headache, for example, you may take an aspirin…that was once a trademark of Bayer, but when they didn’t stop others from using the name they invented, they lost it and it became generic.
Usually, this is a pretty easy case. Some makes bootleg shirts with a logo, the real owner of the logo tells them to stop, and it’s clear who stole what from whom.
The trick with the current flap over some homemade masks being sold on Etsy is that the fabric for the masks was purchased at a retail store as an officially licensed university product, a bolt of cloth. It was then turned into a different product, a face mask, and resold without university approval.
In one respect, why else would you buy a bolt of Hawkeye cloth, unless it was to make something out of it, so the university knows that…but it’s the resale part that no doubt makes the new use illegal. Iowa no doubt is going to want to sell masks themselves…after all, UNI has masks with a panther logo for sale in their bookstore right now.
As a lawyer, I can tell you the law is with the university, regardless of a pandemic going on or not. But you wouldn’t know that from the news coverage.
