The Seattle Seahawks and Texas A&M have been squaring off for years, and their fight is now headed into federal court. The Seahawks like to market their crowd as the 12th man on the field; Texas A&M owns the trademark.
The Seattle Seahawks ran an end-around on Texas A&M, filing notice Thursday to remove from an Aggie hometown court their dispute over the “12th Man” slogan used by the university and the Super Bowl-bound NFL team.
…
According to the motion, since Texas A&M is alleging a violation of its federally registered trademark by the Seahawks, a federal court has jurisdiction in the case.
“It brings everything here to a screeching halt unless the federal court decides to remand it,” said state District Judge J.D. Langley.
The Aggies have been using the 12th man since the 1920s, and the Seahawks have been using the 12th man since the 1980s. The Aggies also have a trademark claim to the marketing ploy.
While I am not so sure that I agree with a trademark being granted on the 12th man in the first place, I do have to side with Texas A&M on this one. They do own it. Hopefully the Seahawks are getting enough publicity from the court cases to make up for having had to stop using the marketing ploy for most of the week.
Hey, be a little careful there. Never, ever, refer to A&M as “Texas”.
“Texas” is the little school just down the road from College Station that happens to have won the NCAA Division I National Championship a couple of years back.
A&M, or the Aggies, are a bunch of folks trapped in a town in the middle of nowhere with nothing better to do than to pretend they’re a military academy. That, and make up songs for their annual whipping by Texas.
The Aggies are in the right vs. the Seahawks. But regardless, they’re not “Texas” any more than Texas Tech, or even UTEP are.
I didn’t mean to offend anyone; I don’t follow any of those schools’ sports. I updated the article.