The unofficial online home for fans of the UAB Blazers. Part of Collegiate Sports Nation (CSN).

While doing some prospecting on Chattanooga area youth football leagues at work since I work in group sales and I'm trying to get in contact with area youth football leadership to invite them to our spring game I came across this:

http://www.ngyfa.org/index.php?option=co...Itemid=108

Always interesting to me when you find a youth/middle school/high school program using our mascot.

Very interesting since unless they have permission to use it, it is theft. Time to call the lawyers.

& they mis-colored the fire.

Obviously very similar, but when was it adopted / trademarked? If it preceded our mascot, we might be the one in trouble. What are the trademark rules if both were TMed at the same time?

UAB has gone after others who have stolen the logo and made them cease and desist or get permission. It's about protecting your brand.

Considering the logo was professionally created for UAB in the mid 1990s, I doubt anyone has had it longer.

What about this "version" of the dragon? Different color, but same otherwise.


http://www.ngyfa.org/index.php?option=co...&Itemid=96

Website and graphics are credited to a Birmingham company, Pro-Imagers LLC. Which even has a picture of a UAB sweatshirt being manufactured on their home page:

http://www.pro-imagers.com/index.php

a) Guess they'd better hope they have a license for it:



and b) Guess they'd better get ready to kiss it goodbye if they do.

Could we stick it to Pro-Imagers if they are using the logo without consent?

Kind of odd because that company has a pretty strict copyright statement for websites they "design", and I use the term design loosely because those sites look like they were created in 1996

Boring Monday eh?

Well, this could be very interesting.

I'm not sure if this company has any type agreement with UAB & even if they do the agreement probably would not include using the logo on its website and/or teams involved in the website.

In my limited experience with this, it seems to me that this company may be making money at the expense of UAB and other logos & trademarks.

Any deals would need to be made between UAB and the team wanting to use the logo.

And...rub it in...

They get to have the Big Head Dragon Helmets too!

(03-04-2013 02:14 PM)Memphis Blazer Wrote:  Very interesting since unless they have permission to use it, it is theft. Time to call the lawyers.

Man that would be a PR nightmare. The media would throw pictures up of those kids all over the TV screen and paint UAB has this big evil empire. The same thing happened with Miami and Union High School in Oklahoma.

(03-04-2013 02:23 PM)Memphis Blazer Wrote:  UAB has gone after others who have stolen the logo and made them cease and desist or get permission. It's about protecting your brand.

Considering the logo was professionally created for UAB in the mid 1990s, I doubt anyone has had it longer.

It was not created for UAB. It was created for the New Jersey Nets. They were going to change their name and mascot but fan backlash prevented it. UAB was able to pick it up on he cheap as a result. Safe to say no one used it before UAB

This wouldn't be a case of UAB versus the little league teams, this would be a case of UAB against the pro-imagers.

I suspect Pro-Imagers may have been promoting the logo without proper approval.

This is not uncharted territory. UAB has issued cease and desist letters several times before. It wasn't a PR nightmare then and it wouldnt be now.

You can't just see something on the internet you like and take it.

The athletics logos are protected heavily. A non-athletic department within UAB itself isn't even supposed to use the Blaze logo

Well I propose a settlement: How about if they use the big, dopey, viking instead?
Nobody misses(d) him...

(03-04-2013 03:45 PM)bladhmadh Wrote:  

(03-04-2013 02:23 PM)Memphis Blazer Wrote:  UAB has gone after others who have stolen the logo and made them cease and desist or get permission. It's about protecting your brand.

Considering the logo was professionally created for UAB in the mid 1990s, I doubt anyone has had it longer.

It was not created for UAB. It was created for the New Jersey Nets. They were going to change their name and mascot but fan backlash prevented it. UAB was able to pick it up on he cheap as a result. Safe to say no one used it before UAB

Doesn't look much like ours to me:

One always takes for granted that big business does a lot of research into TMs and such, but then we remember that NBC ran afoul of the Nebraska PBS network when it adopted its block "N" logo and even EXXON ran into trouble when it first adopted that name after researching (it thought) all possible uses of the logo worldwide but I think it ran into trouble with the island republic of Malta.