ffectionately referred to as ’SC by its students, alumni and fans, the University of Southern California is the rightful owner of the interlocking “SC” trademark, a court announced last week, despite the University of South Carolina’s latest attempt to trademark a similar symbol.

When South Carolina initially came out with the interlocking “SC” logo in 2002, Southern California challenged its application to register it as a trademark. The Trademark Trial and Appeal Board denied South Carolina’s logo, saying it was confusingly similar to USC’s.

In the recent counter appeal by South Carolina after the initial dispute was settled in USC’s favor, the school argued that “SC” is tied with the state of South Carolina and that the university is an agency of the state. The court, however, felt that South Carolina did not adequately demonstrate its case.

“What South Carolina tried to do is register the interlocking ‘SC’ logo for baseball helmets and merchandise related to their baseball team,” said Matthew Curran, USC’s director of Trademark Licensing & Social Responsibility. “Basically, the net result was the [Patent and Trademark Office] came out with the ruling that the interlocking ‘SC’ was a mark too close to what was already registered.”

 

Scott A. Edelman of Gibson Dunn, attorney for the University of Southern California said the ruling protects the school’s “primary athletic mark.”

Nobody would confuse a Trojan for a Gamecock, but he said people might mistake South Carolina merchandise for Trojan merchandise if the garnet-and-black of South Carolina and the cardinal-and-gold of Southern California both carried the same “USC” logo.

“I think they wanted to move away from the gamecock logo,” Edelman said of South Carolina. “Something that is totally understandable.” He described Gamecocks as ”a goofy little chickens.”

Neil C. Jones, an attorney representing the University of South Carolina, said Southern manners would not allow him to respond to Edelman’s comments. Jones said school officials have not decided whether to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Although the ruling does not require South Carolina to immediately discontinue its use of the logo, it does give Southern California the open ability to legally challenge South Carolina’s use of the interlocking “SC” logo.

“The order itself does not affect [Carolina’s] use of the baseball logo,” Jones said. “Whether we will change something hasn’t been decided.”

If South Carolina chooses to continue efforts to trademark the interlocking “SC” logo, the next step will be to take the case to the Supreme Court, a move that Matthew Curran said is highly unlikely.

“At this point it is a remote hypothetical,” said Curran of a continuation of the appeal process. “Our mark has held up pretty well through this process. Hypothetically, if an appeal was lost, it puts our registration to the interlocking ‘SC’ at risk, but that hasn’t happened,” Curran said.

Regardless of whether the logo continues to be used without federal protection, Carolina fans are still questioning the logic of the court’s decision. “We should have exclusive rights to ‘SC’ before anyone else,” Alberts said. “For Southern Cal to say that South Carolina’s logo is causing problems for their consumers is ridiculous.”

The court said the logos could not coexist because they would appear on the same class of goods, be sold in the same type of market and could easily be confused by careless consumers.

Carmen Maye, professor of media law and ethics for Carolina’s School of Journalism and Mass Communications, said she saw no way to rationalize the ruling. “I really think it had to be a matter of the judge’s interpretation,” Maye said.

In the wake of that decision, one question in the minds of frustrated Gamecocks is this: how could someone confuse logos that are different colors and belong to schools on opposite sides of the country? “We actually discussed [the case] in my business law class and no one, including myself, thought that [the logos] were confusingly similar,” Abby Pierson, a second-year accounting student, said. “Not only are the color schemes for the two schools completely different, but the placement of the letters is not similar either.”

According to the federal case summary, color and exact letter placement are not relevant — the logos are considered “legally identical” simply because they include the same interlocking initials.

The official case summary can be found at here: The University of South Carolina v. University of Southern California (PDF).