The University of Texas
is suing Aggieland Outfitters, alleging that AO's "Saw 'em Off" logo
"..is likely to cause confusion, to cause mistake, or to deceive customers".
While it's debatable who first (and when) visually depicted what "
Saw Varsity's Horns Off.." would look like, Aggieland Outfitters was the first to standardize the image and sell it on t-shirts back in 1997. Since then, the logo's popularity has exploded and is almost considered a secondary logo for Texas A&M:
the image is so popular that even the Fightin' Texas Aggie Band will bust it out every once in a while.a lot of people from other schools think that's a "horns down", it's actually the horns sawed off.Both my favorite Texas shirt and proof that not only has UT been keenly aware of the logo, they've been playing along too.The lawsuit against the decade old logo was filed Dec. 4th, 2006. That's right, a week after the Aggies beat the Longhorns 12-7 in Austin.
You decided what's worse:
Late Hit on McCoyOrTrying to put a family out of business because your team got embarassed by the school you like to pretend isn't a rival anymoreIf UT was
truly interested in protecting its trademark, it would be filing lawsuits against the likes of:
the city of Fort Worth
Microsoft
OU shirt vendors
hundreds of schools around the state of Texas
While Seattle fans may be taking much pleasure from this debacle, I think most reasonable sports fans see this action as fairly childish and to be honest, very opposite of the carefully constructed image of
We're Texas (and stupidly arrogant).
Whether you hate Texas, support A&M, or just can't stand bullies, stop by
AggielandOutfitters.com and buy one of their new shirts (below) inspired by the lawsuit
OR tell everyone you know about the story. The more negative publicity for UT that is generated, the less inclined they'll be to continue with the lawsuit.
The shirt says it all:
update (10:34PM): to all the anonymous horns comparing this case to the Ft. Worth case or the Seattle/12th Man case. What Aggieland Outfitters is doing is called
Parody and has been upheld by the Supreme Court for the past two decades. As a
Professor of Trademark Law, Louis T. Pirkey (UT's lawyer) should know better. Either Pirkey shouldn't be teaching at such a prestigious law school, or UT was counting on hollow intimidation to get what it wanted.
HT:
The Battalion