Brownwood ISD school board trustees decided to collect more information before voting on a proposal that would allow the district to trademark school logos, slogans, and symbols including the popular leaping lion design.
The BISD school board heard a proposal from Scholastic Solutions, Ltd, a firm from Oklahoma that would register, maintain, manage, and license school trademarks if the district voted to approve this measure. The company outlined a multi-phase proposal that would allow them to help the school raise more revenue without raising taxes, and help the district maintain control of school logos.
The presentation outlined the following points regarding their trademark process:
- The district would approve a list of officially licensed vendors
- A 10% royalty would be assessed on products for retail sale in the public market through these vendors (example: A $10 shirt will now cost $11 with the royalty).
- Scholastic Solutions, Ltd would give the district 75% of the royalty back and keep 25%.
- No up-front licensing fee would be charged to vendors to participate.
- Licensed vendors would be required to use and purchase official tags from Scholastic Solutions, Ltd to appear on all licensed merchandise which includes a hologram and QR code for authentication. Tags cost 5.5 cents each.
- Booster clubs and other organizations that support school programs would be required to purchase their products for fundraisers from licensed vendors with the official tags.
- Licensed merchandise would not only include apparel, but any product where the official logo appears.
- The district can trademark any word, phrase, symbol, design, sound, smell, color, product, configuration, group of letters or numbers, or combination of these that is adapted and used to identify the school district in some way.
- Scholastic Solutions, Ltd would offer an online “school store” if the district wished to sell their own merchandise.
Representatives from Scholastic Solutions, Ltd said that the process takes 45-90 days to implement the trademark program. Once the trademark paperwork is submitted to the Secretary of State’s office, it will take approximately 2-3 week for the trademark to be approved or denied. Officials stated that the possibility exists that the leaping lion logo may not be approved as-is if it is found that it is too similar to other existing trademarks. If so, the district can either look to make a change to the logo or cancel the agreement with Scholastic Solutions, Ltd. Officials said that the color difference of the leaping lion compared to similar logos should not require a change; however, it would be up to the state to make that determination.
Brownwood ISD Superintendent Reece Blincoe recommended that the school board authorize him to negotiate the agreement with the company with input from the district’s legal counsel. The district officials wanted to move forward on the agreement so it would be fully in place once the next school year began, but some school board members were hesitant to move forward before getting feedback from local vendors and the community.
“I am a fan of this idea,” said board member Eric Evans. “But I think there will be anxiety from the public.”
Evans said that he thought getting feedback from local vendors would be a smart move before moving forward which was echoed by other school board members.
“I want to see us table this issue and find out if we have community support,” said school board trustee Michael Cloy.
The school board voted to table the issue for this month by a majority vote. Blincoe recommended that local vendors speak directly with Scholastic Solutions, Ltd to get their questions answered. The issue will be taken up again next month at the BISD school board meeting in June.
