JUDGE TO SOUTH TEXAS COLLEGE OF LAW: NOPE, SWITCH YOUR NAME BACK UNTIL UH LAWSUIT IS OVER 
On Friday a judge issued a temporary injunction on South Texas College of Law’s sudden June rebranding, agreeing that the University of Houston has a point that the new name (Houston College of Law) and new color scheme (red and white) might be a bit confusing. Gabrielle Banks reports that the 2 schools will get together on Wednesday to talk through the name-change reversal; UH’s legal team notes that South Texas will have to “remove their billboards, change their website, remove merchandise from stores and change their name [back] in the American Bar Association database” — at least until the lawsuit (filed less than a week after the name change was first announced) wraps up. [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot] Photo of South Texas College of Law at 1303 San Jacinto St.: South Texas College of Law
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makes total sense to me …. besides, why not just call it ‘Texas Aggie College of Law’ and be done with it? (You know you’d love it)
It was pretty presumptive to make these changes and print all the new signs before even announcing the change. They knew this would be coming and chose to waste the money anyway. Even adopted the same color for their school. All this really smacks of desperation.
Let UH know they don’t have “Houston” trademarked. And they’re shade of red is distinct from UH red.
Who would get Houston College of Law confused with University of Houston? This is not like the incident of Two Pesos and Taco Cabana. Curious to see to how this case goes.
In other news, “Third Tier Law School Fails to Perform Sufficient Legal Analysis!” Film at 11.
The line that south Texas law is really good at moot court (as a way that they paper over all their obvious deficiencies) is now starting to look really weak. They basically just got owned by UH. This is embarssing as heck for them.
For the judge to issue the temporary injunction, she had to have found that UH had a likelihood of ultimate success on the merits of its case. A TI hearing is like a mini-trial. Getting a TI in place doesn’t guarantee a win at trial, but it’s not a bad sign. I’d expect South Texas to work pretty hard to come up with something new like “The South Texas College of Law At Houston.”
The injunction means nothing. No one owns the name Houston. Their color was always red. The case will settle in South Texas’ favor.
Wow, having a dog in this fight really does bring out the amateur intellectual property experts! I don’t have a dog in this one, but was always puzzled why South Texas wanted to push the envelope as hard as it did with all aspects of its name change. Sometimes, when you get too close to the edge, you fall off the mountain.
Getting the injunction is often half the battle. STCL will have to stop using the new name pending trial on the merits. That will be a six figure investment. And if they lose at trial, they may have to write UH a check in addition to having a permanent injunction on the new name. STCL’s problems have little to do with branding and a lot more to do with the changing job market. They can no longer turn out endless numbers of cannon fodder for personal injury litigation. Tort reform ate up a lot of that work. Then, the recession and oil bust made the legal job market much more difficult than it has been in a long time in Houston. Rebranding will do nothing to change any of this.
To all the people saying that UH doesn’t own the name UH, you’re right, just like Apple doesn’t own the name Apple, but try to create an electronic device and call it an apple and see how far you get?
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The easiest way to find out whether someone is trading on an established name is simple:
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can they easily be confused?
and
do they do the same thing?
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in this case, yes to both. If I say “Houston College of Law” to someone who isn’t trying really hard to understand the difference between the Houston College of Law and the University of Houston College of Law, they would be forgiven for confusing the two, and that’s the problem.
TIL UH has a law school, or at least a law center, whatever that is. It’s branded University of Houston Law Center, not University of Houston College of Law or Houston College of Law.
http://www.law.uh.edu/