Up the Cougars!! Down the NFL!!
I was at the season opener last year and couldn’t believe they weren’t selling the “houston blue” merch. I’m glad the university is being aggressive. That’s a bullshit trade dress argument from the NFL and Titans.
You’re the lawyer, but…in my mind there’s no doubt those uniforms were specifically to evoke memories of the old Oilers. Is the university capitalizing on that image? Eh…I’m not sure the NFL’s position is completely unreasonable. But no doubt the NFL are huge fucking babies and Amy Adams Strunk is an insufferable asshole, just like her old man.
3 Likes
There are several college teams that share similar color schemes or other design elements with pro teams. For instance, both the Missouri Tigers and the Iowa Hawkeyes use colors similar to the Pittsburg Steelers. When former Steeler assistant coach Woody Widenhofer became head coach of the Missouri Tigers they altered their uniforms to look even more like the Steelers because he was hoping to create a similar culture of winning (he failed miserably but that’s beside the point). The motivation for the Cougars is completely different and the status of the defunct Oiler colors is as well. But there is a precedent of college teams at least mimicking NFL teams.
I get all that. But the purpose of trade dress protection is to prevent someone else from profiting from the aesthetic you worked to establish. Part of establishing that protection is demonstrating that such trade dress has “secondary meaning” and could be immediately identified with a particular product. That’s where the NFL is saying, hey, you’re only wearing these to profit off the local nostalgia of the Oilers.
And that’s not a wholly unreasonable accusation, IMO. Then again, how would the NFL actually be damaged? Would any consumer reasonably confuse a UH game with an NFL game? Doubtful. The NFL, and the Tennessee Titans, are just being jerks about it.
But isn’t there something about an entity having to enforce these things all of the time? If they let UH slide and then somebody else comes along and uses the scheme in a way that does damage the Titans, wouldn’t their failure to protect against UH constitute a precedent for that somebody else?
ETA: I always thought that was why Xerox, for example, was so adamant that people use the term “photocopy”.
This seems to me to be the main point. Trade mark and trade dress infringement claims require establishing a likelihood of confusion.
Fun fact: the leading trade dress US Supreme Court opinion is Taco Cabana vs Two Pesos, where the court affirmed that Two Pesos intentionally copied Taco Cabana’s decorative pastiche. Taco Cabana ended up acquiring all of the Two Pesos locations which fueled Taco Cabana’s mid-90s expansion.
1 Like
I remember all that mess. One of the settlement agreements was that Two Pesos had to put up signs in all their restaurants informing customers that they’d been bad and illegally copied Taco Cabana. Two Pesos’ nachos were also better.
I’m sure the NFL is arguing that. How much that matters, I don’t know.
It was a damn shame, Two Pesos was markedly better. Especially the one on Westheimer @Nantucket.
1 Like
I was a Two Pesos man myself. The locations at Kirby just north of 59 and Main at OST were both originally Two Pesos if I’m not mistaken. And I may be because I believe at the time margaritas were $1.
1 Like
They were both Two Pesos, as was the one at Montrose and Westheimer. Used to eat at the one on Kirby/59 when I waited tables at the Bennigan’s next door, and at the one on Montrose/Westheimer because I lived just a few blocks away. It was somewhat of a source of pride to be a Two Pesos man. “Taco Cabana? Fuck that shit…”
2 Likes
Speaking of “B” restaurants…what was the place on/around West Gray, across from the Laff Stop(?) that had the frozen bellinis?
As a San Antonio lad, the first I heard of Two Pesos was when I read the case in law school.
2 Likes
The Laff Stop was on Waugh up close to Allen Parkway. There was the Daiquiri Factory on Westheimer and Waugh, sort of across from the Tower Theater. Is that the one?
I’d forgotten all about the one on Montrose and Westheimer.
I have a cousin who worked at that Birraporetti’s. And with respect to B restaurants on West Gray, there was Biba’s.
What was the legendary comedy venue on San Felipe and Shepherd that is now a Spec’s?
Not on Gray, but the bellinnis at Baba Yega were always good.
The original was on West Gray across from Birraporetti’s. No joke: Houston's legendary Laff Stop closes - CultureMap Houston
2 Likes
I lived in San Antonio from 80 to 88 and only in the last few years I was there was there more than one Taco Cabana.
1 Like