The University of Texas at Austin board of regents filed a lawsuit Dec. 4 against an apparel merchant in College Station, Texas citing that the defendant has used the university’s logo in an unauthorized manner.
Fadi Kalaouze created a logo under his company, Kalcorp Enterprises, containing an image of UT’s mascot, a longhorn, with its horns cut off accompanied by the slogan “Saw ‘em off.”
According to a source, while Texas A&M University itself is not involved in the lawsuit, it does have a licensing agreement with Kalcorp Enterprises to sell products with their logo in exchange for a share of the royalties.
Anyone who keeps up with intercollegiate sports knows that the University of Texas vs. Texas A&M is one of the biggest college rivalries of all time. So could this possibly be an argument that runs deeper than an issue of possible confusion amongst the logos?
Allan Van Fleet, the lawyer representing Kalaouze and his company, wrote in his answer that the logo is merely a parody of the UT tradition logo, and therefore is protected by the First Amendment.
According to John D. Zelenzy’s Communications Law, it appears Kalaouze and his company are indeed protected by the first amendment under a time, place, and manner restriction. The UT regents have allowed other businesses throughout the state to use their logo similarly, therefore putting themselves in a difficult situation to win this particular case.
In fact, Van Fleet wrote in the motion that the lawsuit “was a legally baseless display of poor sportsmanship” since the regents filed the lawsuit only days after the surprising upset at the Lonestar Showdown in Austin the day after Thanksgiving, Trujillo said.
However, Craig Westemeier, the special assistant to the vice president for institutional relations and legal affairs at UT, said that the regents “don’t consider it a parody, but an infringement on our logo.”
Van Fleet argued that the logo could not possibly be confused with the UT logo stating that regardless, UT waived its rights to the logo when it allowed other businesses to use it similarly.
Yet, UT attorney, Louis Pirkey, said in a statement: “We have told Mr. Kalaouze that there are plenty of longhorn designs he can use to symbolize those (Aggie) traditions without objection from UT — so long as he does not mutilate UT’s registered logo.”
In fact, Kalaouze had previously submitted the “Saw ‘em off” trademark to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office but was denied. The office stated in its final decision that “the similarities among the marks and goods are so great to create a likelihood of confusion.”
At this point, the final outcome of the case is still unknown. According to Communications Law, “though the choice of words may not have been journalistically wise, the First Amendment generally prohibits punishing someone for a failure to live up to the majority’s standards for good taste or proper judgment in expression.”
However, the question isn’t whether or not they should be protected under the First Amendment. According to modern interpretations of the First Amendment by the U.S. Supreme Court, it is indeed a freedom of expression for Kalaouze and Kalcorp Enterprises to create the logo it did. The area that does remain in question, though, is the fact that Kalaouze is making a profit off of his freedom of expression at the expense of another school, its biggest rival’s, expense.
