UH economist, Wisconsin school mascot in trademark fight
A University of Houston energy economist is facing a legal battle with the University of Wisconsin-Madison and its mascot, Buckingham Ulysses “Bucky” Badger.
“I am being badgered by a badger,” Ed Hirs said Monday, explaining how he got crosswise with the university and Fanatics, licensed retailer for that university and many others.
The donnybrook started when Hirs applied to trademark the phrases “buckynomics” and “buckymarkets,” which he’s been using in his lectures and academic writing as a way to conceptualize complex, networked markets. The University of Wisconsin is opposing his bid on the basis that the terms encroach on its use of “Bucky Badger.”
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office is overseeing the proceeding, which formally began shortly after Hirs filed a trademark application last year. The dispute will likely not be resolved for another year or so.
Hirs said the inspiration for his terms came from “buckyballs” — the common nickname for buckminsterfullerene, a form of carbon discovered by Rice University scientists Richard Smalley and Robert Curl in the 1980s, for which they received the 1996 Nobel Prize in chemistry, along with British scientist Harold Kroto.
He explained that he could see some parallels between the complex markets he was contemplating and the carbon molecule in question, and that he had spent some time in the Smalley-Curl lab himself early in his ca
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reer. It was a convivial scene, as he described it: “You’re stepping over bottles of liquid nitrogen; the lasers and the mirrors are propped up by old books that were checked out of the library 50 years ago.”
He added that Bucky Badger from Wisconsin wasn’t even on his radar until he learned of the opposition proceeding, as the process is formally known. “What is a badger, and why should I care?”
Badgers are animals from the mustelid family, which also includes ferocious creatures such as martens and wolverines. While they are occasionally sighted in Texas, they enjoy a much higher profile in Wisconsin, also known as the Badger State.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison officially adopted Buckingham U. “Bucky” Badger as its mascot in 1940, according to a university publication.
The character typically sports a scowl and a red-and-white striped sweater but no pants, like Winnie-the-Pooh.
“The Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin owns and controls several logos, seals, symbols and trademarks directly associated with the University including word marks ‘Bucky Badger’ and ‘Bucky,’” John Lucas, a university spokesperson, said. “All trademark applications are reviewed. When an entity attempts to register one of our marks, the university must and will take appropriate action.”
Karen Tripp, an intellectual property attorney based in Houston representing Hirs, said the Patent and Trademark Office will seek to to determine whether the use of “buckynomics” and “buckymarkets” would create a likelihood of confusion in the marketplace between Bucky Badger and Hirs’ concepts.
“I think it’s a big stretch,” she said.
If the PTO sides with Wisconsin, she continued, Hirs can still use the terms “buckynomics” and “buckymarkets,” but the university in that case could continue to push back, even by taking him
to court.
The very notion of facing an opposition proceeding can be daunting for small companies, Tripp added, or individuals such as Hirs, who works as a consultant and
writer as well as a lecturer at the University of Houston.
Hirs, for his part, was defiant in the face of “this little rascal,” as he put it.
“This is complete padoodle,” he said.