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August 24, 2005

President Bush is an Alumnus of Phillips Academy, But Which One?

Both Presidents with the last name Bush attended Phillips Academy. You may be surprised to learn that the school they attended was in Andover, not next to the St. Bernard public housing development in New Orleans.

Okay, so maybe you aren't surprised by this. However, the lawyers representing the Phillips Academy in Andover were very serious about policing their registered mark, "PHILLIPS ACADEMY" (Registration Number 2,862,212). In a phone call to the new Phillips Academy in New Orleans, the law firm for the old Phillips Academy threatened a lawsuit over the 227 year-old trademark. Rather than spending precious education money on a lawsuit, the New Orleans school agreed to change to KIPP Phillips College Prep. This was probably a wise choice. The endowment for Phillips of Andover is $556 million, which exceeds the budget of the entire Orleans Parish school system. Hopefully, the avoidance of a lawsuit will leave precious money for the education of the 125 eighth-graders enrolled at the New Orleans school this year (nearly half of whom are statistically expected to drop out).

This story isn't all about bullying, though. Phillips Academy in Andover agreed to donate $2,000 of its $556,000,000 to cover costs involved in changing the name on signs and uniform T-shirts. This is the first time I've heard of a trademark owner paying the costs for the alleged infringer to move off the mark.

For more on this, see Bush's old school gives N.O. school a test in the Times-Picayune. Additionally, the websites for the schools can be found here (Andover) and here (New Orleans).

Thanks to Andrew in New Orleans for sending us the link.



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Posted by Melody Wirz at 12:50 PM.
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Comments

Wow. Andover's endowment is about 3 times larger than Oklahoma State's and in the same ballpark as OU. That is some "Acadamy."

Posted by: Trey at August 24, 2005 03:24 PM

I've seen clients offer to foot the bill for alleged TM infringers to change their stuff... I think it's a great idea especially in lopsided situations like this

Posted by: Roy at August 25, 2005 10:27 AM

"This is the first time I've heard of a trademark owner paying the costs for the alleged infringer to move off the mark."

That's not at all unusual, especially when the alleged infringer has any sort of argument that they aren't infringing. I always suggest it to my clients, whichever side they're on. It's much cheaper to kick in a few thousand dollars to pay for new signage and stationery than to bring a lawsuit.

If there's any chance the alleged infringer has superior rights, paying for a change is a big plus.

Posted by: Mike Brown at August 25, 2005 02:44 PM

I went to Andover and it's a very widely respected school. They've been around for so long and donated so much time and money to noble causes, they don't have to share their name with anyone.

Posted by: Anonymous at February 24, 2006 11:46 PM