Didn't know where to put this so please bear with me. I was interested to know if Football team colors were trademarked. I understand that any use of the team name/s or badges is protected, but was curious about just the colors. For example, if i were to make and sell an item in Barca Red and Blue stripes but made no mention of the team/nickname would this be illegal? Many fans would get the association right away just by the color combination. I know some NCAA teams are protecting their team colors as they are closely associated with a specific team: http://www.brandweek.com/bw/magazine/features/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003556671
As far as I know you can't trademark a team's colours, but most teams copyright their badge, and their strips with the form of their badge on. What I'm saying is if you make a Barca kit that's exactly the same as the current shirt but without the badges, that's not illegal as Unicef, Nike and Barcelona FC have copyrighted their logos and their likenesses. However if they do feature badges that is illegal. Obviously there was the guy who seized the opportunity when Arsenal didn't copyright their badge - he bought the copyright himself and tried to sell it back to the club at an extortionate rate, hence the change of badge.
thanks biggskizz. regarding your kit example, wouldn't nike or the kit manufacturer own the rights to certain 'style elements' on the kit, such as placement of piping, vents, etc? that's what i thought too about the colors, but after finding that article attached about ncaa teams i started to wonder.....
I'm not sure really. I suppose that makes sense because 1) all the fake shirts in London are getting pulled (albeit at a terribly slow rate, and also because most of them are really, really crap). But then again, eBay sellers are allowed to get away with selling fakes - have you ever noticed as opposed to writing: "NEW NIKE XL ARSENAL HOME SHIRT" they say "NEW XL ARSENAL HOME JERSEY 100% AUTHENTIC" If they write it like that, it doesn't insinuate that the shirt is made by Nike and therefore they can sell it however they want. It's authentic alright, an authentic fake. And as they haven't advertised it as a Nike jersey, it was never authentic. Therefore, they aren't viewed as selling fake shirts, as they never advertise them as being real. Try it yourself on eBay, type in "Arsenal home", look at the number of responses, then type "Nike Arsenal". I bet the number of responses are less. The copyright laws are quite lax really, but there isn't too much Nike can do apart from say that because it features the Arsenal, Nike and Fly Emirates logos, it IS meant to be sold as an Arsenal shirt.