The $46,000 Tennessee logo.The sad tale of the $46,000 new Tennessee logo gets better and better.
The “simple” but pricy logo that looks like the postal designation for our state, TN, is exactly that: Too simple and maybe too much like the postal designation for the state.
After Gov. Bill Haslam took lots of guff and a “Pork of the Year” wasteful government spending award for our postal designation, er- logo, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office last week rejected the state’s application to register it on the basis that it is “primary geographically descriptive.”
That means the main significance of the logo is geographic and can’t be trademarked.
“It’s to prevent someone from claiming exclusive rights to use a term that other people need to use to communicate that their product comes from Tennessee,” Wayne Beavers, shareholder with Nashville-based Patterson Intellectual Property Law, told a reporter with the Tennessean.