I hope I am not alone here but I don't think we have had a satisfactory answer to the issue regarding our official club badge/crest. I see from the caption of our 2 new signings that the "new" format is displayed and I personally feel this cheapens the image of our club. Again, we are NOT ICTFC, we are Inverness Caledonian Thistle FC! 

Edited July 12, 20168 yr by caleyboy

54 minutes ago, CaleyD said:

Yes, it was registered at the end of last year.  Both as standalone wording and in conjunction with the badge.

I find it a bit strange that a very general term like this should be allowed to be the exclusive preserve of a single football club. It's a bit presumptuous, perhaps, to claim that this very specialised interest should be the only thing of which the Highlands are now entitled to be proud, or that its activities are more deserving of pride than anything else in the Highlands. Not maybe the best way to win friends and influence people.

General terms and phrases have been allowed for donkeys Charles ..... Coca Cola "It's the real thing" for example ? or how about Mr Kipling's "Exceedingly Good" cakes. Walmart even tried to trademark the yellow smiley face they use but got denied in this case. Paris Hilton was approved for "That's Hot". Twitter have been denied the trademark on the word "Tweet" and Subway has a pending result for the word "Footlong" although McDonalds were denied in their attempts to trademark the "Mc" prefix. and Donald Trump was denied for the phrase "You're Fired" from the apprentice TV show yet seems to have been approved for his current presidential slogan "Make America Great Again" ......

 

The registrations (linked below) are listed for use on clothing, footwear and headgear. 

https://www.ipo.gov.uk/tmcase/Results/1/UK00003141872

https://www.ipo.gov.uk/tmcase/Results/1/UK00003141874

 

Of interest: 50 common words/phrases/brand-names that are trademarked !

http://digitalsynopsis.com/advertising/generic-trademark-product-brand-names/

I think the difference is that long before ICTFC - or maybe I should say Inverness Caledonian Thistle Football Club - was even thought of, and unlike the other quoted phrases, the expression "Pride of.... this, that and the other" was standard English usage. It therefore follows that ICTFC is presuming to lay exclusive claim to an already established idiom which, as such, I find difficult to see as its intellectual property. It's a bit like the case a few years ago when a food chain tried to block the owner's name going up on a Fort William restaurant - until Mr and Mrs MacDonald successfully objected.

The "Pride of the Highlands" tag for the club? Well I think it's a bit twee and cheesy but I'm not too fussed one way or the other about using it. Claiming exclusive rights to it though? Well that's maybe a bit grandiose and disrespectful to the huge amount of Highland life which goes on outwith football.

Edited July 29, 20168 yr by Charles Bannerman

Dont think they are claiming exclusive rights to it ... they are merely protecting their 'intellectual property' as it relates to the use on clothing, footwear and headgear with or without the club badge. Like it or not, its a slogan that has been used and has become somewhat synonymous with the club so regardless of what I or others think about where it is used, I do agree with the concept of protecting that slogan.

I do find it interesting that the trademark doesnt mention social media however, but given that I have been fighting twitter for some time now to have a couple of fake accounts suspended that are using our CTO profile, information, links and my own, personally taken photos, with them basically finding me new hoops to jump through every time I clear their last hurdle its perhaps understandable.    

21 hours ago, Renegade said:

Reminds me of a while back I was going to buy that ICT hoodie thing that came out before I saw that the dreadfully tacky '#TogetherNess' was written in big silver letters on the back.  The club lost the sale from that.

 

What's wrong with #togetherNess on the hoodie? We were more than divided last season and calling for unity was a good call. As for this cheesy line under the club badge, I just gave Charles Bannerman a greenie. Something must amiss! Will Ross County now follow and put 'more than just a football club' under their badge? The tension is too much to take

Edited July 29, 20168 yr by TopSix

9 minutes ago, TopSix said:

What's wrong with #togetherNess on the hoodie? 

its trademarked to HBO ! ... in fact there are multiple registrations of Togetherness .... 

 

and thats a good illustration of my point...... The McDonalds example is a red herring about a litigious company who try to stop anyone from using anything close to their name even if it can be shown not to be seeking commercial advantage or anything to do with their brand. I would include apple - who wanted to trademark anything that began with a lower case 'i' - and others in this same boat. Caley Thistle are not seeking to stop anyone from using 'Pride of the Highlands' nor to gain any exclusivity over the phrase (we used it first !!!), but they do want to try and make sure that no-one who might try to pass things off as being associated with the club can be dealt with in terms of infringing on their IP ....   

1 minute ago, Scotty said:

its trademarked to HBO ! ... in fact there are multiple registrations of Togetherness .... 

This is getting ridiculous now has anyone started a petition yet? 

29 minutes ago, Charles Bannerman said:

I think the difference is that long before ICTFC - or maybe I should say Inverness Caledonian Thistle Football Club - was even thought of, and unlike the other quoted phrases, the expression "Pride of.... this, that and the other" was standard English usage. It therefore follows that ICTFC is presuming to lay exclusive claim to an already established idiom which, as such, I find difficult to see as its intellectual property. It's a bit like the case a few years ago when a food chain tried to block the owner's name going up on a Fort William restaurant - until Mr and Mrs MacDonald successfully objected.

The "Pride of the Highlands" tag for the club? Well I think it's a bit twee and cheesy but I'm not too fussed one way or the other about using it. Claiming exclusive rights to it though? Well that's maybe a bit grandiose and disrespectful to the huge amount of Highland life which goes on outwith football.

Jesus 

1 minute ago, ferben1994 said:

Jesus 

think thats trademarked too

12 minutes ago, TopSix said:

Will Ross County now follow and put 'more than just a football club' under their badge? The tension is too much to take

heard a rumour that they were applying for "s**** of the highlands"

19 minutes ago, Scotty said:

think thats trademarked too

You must be thinking of the slogan "Jesus Saves - with the TSB"

1 hour ago, TopSix said:

This is getting ridiculous now has anyone started a petition yet? 

What's HBO?

1 hour ago, TopSix said:

 

What's wrong with #togetherNess on the hoodie? We were more than divided last season and calling for unity was a good call. As for this cheesy line under the club badge, I just gave Charles Bannerman a greenie. Something must amiss! Will Ross County now follow and put 'more than just a football club' under their badge? The tension is too much to take

No. There hoping to cash in on us by using 'Forever in their Shadow'

1 hour ago, Alex MacLeod said:

What's HBO?

Isn't it a TVs channel? 

Oh and I thought it was a bank 

Last time I checked, Ross County hadn't even registered their badge....I was tempted!!!

5 hours ago, Scotty said:

Dont think they are claiming exclusive rights to it ... they are merely protecting their 'intellectual property' as it relates to the use on clothing, footwear and headgear with or without the club badge.

To be fair to the club, it may simply be the case that the law is so downright daft that they have felt the need to protect their use of a cliché to prevent someone else from doing the same and hence denying them the use of it.

IBM , I do believe that it once did -----as Hong Kong Banking Corp. I remember seeing tall buildings here in the Vancouver area with HBO on the top as an advertisement not that long ago. We have a district called Richmond here in the city which once was home to about 12,000 anglo-saxons when I first arrived to live there. Now there are well over 100,000 Chinese residents and as a result he Municipal Managers decided to put the street signs into the Chinese language.

It confused me for ages when suddenly it started to appear in the different context on the T.V.

You must be thinking of the slogan "Jesus Saves - with the TSB"

Everybody knows Jesus saves but Dalglish nets the rebound.

2 hours ago, Scarlet Pimple said:

IBM , I do believe that it once did -----as Hong Kong Banking Corp. I remember seeing tall buildings here in the Vancouver area with HBO on the top as an advertisement not that long ago. We have a district called Richmond here in the city which once was home to about 12,000 anglo-saxons when I first arrived to live there. Now there are well over 100,000 Chinese residents and as a result he Municipal Managers decided to put the street signs into the Chinese language.

It confused me for ages when suddenly it started to appear in the different context on the T.V.

This has to be one of the most random posts on CTO. How are you going Pimple? 

15 hours ago, Scarlet Pimple said:

IBM , I do believe that it once did -----as Hong Kong Banking Corp. I remember seeing tall buildings here in the Vancouver area with HBO on the top as an advertisement not that long ago.

sure you dont mean HSBC ? (Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation). HBO (Home Box Office) is a TV channel responsible for amongst other things Game of Thrones 

47 minutes ago, Scotty said:

HBO is a TV channel responsible for amongst other things Game of Thrones

You learn something every day. I had thought it stood for Honking Body Odour!

23 hours ago, Scarlet Pimple said:

IBM , I do believe that it once did -----as Hong Kong Banking Corp. I remember seeing tall buildings here in the Vancouver area with HBO on the top as an advertisement not that long ago. We have a district called Richmond here in the city which once was home to about 12,000 anglo-saxons when I first arrived to live there. Now there are well over 100,000 Chinese residents and as a result he Municipal Managers decided to put the street signs into the Chinese language.

It confused me for ages when suddenly it started to appear in the different context on the T.V.

A bit off topic SP but the signs over here are now nearly all in Gaelic so you are not alone 

 Must be the heat over here the noo -- 85 degrees yesterday- goes to the head and sends you off topic a wee bit. So my apologies.

But Scotty is right I think. It could have been HSBC, or even HBC,  on the large building signs. Not HBO of course  which is , as he states, related to T.V.