” Licensed Only by the First Amendment”
Although Smack Apparel has been selling colleagiate t-shirt parodies since 1989, the absence of authorizing licenses was not a business oversight. Smack Apparel proudly announces on its website, “Licensed ONLY by the First Amendment” when it uses colors, fonts and near verbatim phrasing of popular college imprimaturs at www.smackapparel.com.
For Duke University - Puke
For Louisiana State - Bourbon Street or Bust
Colleagiate Licensing together with seven schools ( Louisiana University, University of Oklahoma, University of Southern California among them) sued Smack Apparel alledging trademark infringement by school color appropriation.
U.S. District Judge Mary Ann Lemmon of the Eastern District of Louisiana granted summary judgement in favor of Plaintiffs and finding trademark infringement for defendant’s color misappropriation.
Counsel for Plaintiff, Collegiate Licensing, commented that such infringement as that of Smack Apparel, amounted to an estimated detour of over three (3) billion dollars in retail collegiate merchandise which denies the schools of scholarship and endowment monies.
Board of Supervisos of the Louisiana State University et al v. Smack Apparel 04-1593 (2006) E.D. Louisiana.