I'm trying to start my own business of selling different products featuring logos of college and professional sports teams. Does anyone know the costs, legality, or anything else I should know about this?
2006-07-19 05:56:24 · 1 answers · asked by AZCardsfan 2 in Politics & Government ➔ Law & Ethics
It takes a license.
Most logos are trademarks, either through state law or federally registered. Use of a trademark without permission is violation of trademark law.
A license grants the holder certain rights of use that the holder would normally not have. So, a trademark license would allow the license holder to use the trademark when they would normally not have the right to use the trademark.
The trademark owner is empowered to grant a license to use a trademark they own, under whatever contract/license terms they negotiate with the prospective license holder. Some trademark holders already have exclusive license deals with others, so allowing anyone else to license their marks would be a breach of existing contracts.
To find out what would be involved in licensing each particular trademark (per team), you would need to contact the trademark holder and ask them. Because of the complexity of most professional licensure contracts, you would be well advised to get an attorney to handle this.
2006-07-19 07:44:47 · answer #1 · answered by coragryph 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋