Trademark question

Seems like an obvious attempt to sell a licensed shirt without a license. The schools and the CLC will probably have a problem with it.

On a separate note, why would a Nebraska or Michigan football fan buy this version rather than just buy a licensed shirt? It's not like the officially licensed shirts are expensive or hard to find.

That's a good point. What about if placed on a different color shirt entirely? I really don't want to do something wrong, and I doubt I would make much money on these anyways. I am actually going to try out a flea market and I was trying to think of some things I could do for practice in creating shirts with some graphics and sell them real cheap. Figured some people might want to just buy a generic shirt that has some appeal to football, basketball fans etc.

If that's the case, then avoid the state or school connection and just make a generic basketball and football graphic. With no reference to the state, you could easily do them in school colors and that would probably be fine. For instance, a football themed graphic that was printed in gold on a navy blue shirt.

Yeah, I was playing around with that as well. Then I tried a few with some state outlines and a graphic with a basketball going through a hoop just at the edge of the states outlines and I liked the way they looked real well. Thought those looked the best. I really liked them and thought I would like to try them if they weren't wrong to do. Maybe if I used unrelated colors both with the graphics and shirt colors it would be OK.

While I am on the subject and you are so learned in this area let me ask this, if I may. How about the names of state parks or state lakes that people frequent for recreation. Are those names generally trademarked or are they like the names of towns and OK to use? Thanks

I don't know, you'd have to look each one up individually on the USPTO website. Since tourism and merchandising tend to go hand in hand, I'm sure the parks or the state have some legal protection.

Thanks, I appreciate all the time you invest in helping us here at the forums.