Calstuff Steps On More Toes
Seriously, How Important Is A Trademark, Anyway?

Apparently, we at Calstuff violated some trademark regulations. We received this letter earlier this week from the UCB administration:

I am writing you as a representative of the Office of Marketing and Management of Trademarks (OMMT). Your name appears as part of the "Contact" section of Calstuff.blogspot.com. OMMT is the office responsible for managing and protecting University of California, Berkeley trademarks.

You may not know, but the Cal script logo is a federally registered trademark, and the Campanile is also a trademark of the campus. Your Web site is using the campus' trademarks without authorization. Since your group has no official affiliation with the University, we would like to ask you to take the following steps:

1) Change "Cal" to a form other than script (block would be fine)
2) Add a disclaimer at the top of the page to the effect that: "Calstuff.blogspot.com and/or the opinions expressed are not affiliated with the University of California, Berkeley."

Thank you for your time and attention.

Sincerely,
J-- G--------

Hmm... well, we know the "Cal script logo" is copyrighted. However, our banner, while similar to the official logo, is really not close enough to the real Cal logo to warrant university oversight. Why they're splitting hairs on this is not really clear.



Meanwhile, as a gesture of good faith, we did add the disclaimer they requested. You may have noticed it in the left hand corner of the screen. Hopefully, this is the end of the dispute, and we at CalStuff have not decided what further action we will take.Email This Post!