Under Armour Demands Tiny Clothier 'Armor And Glory' Change Name Or Face Legal Siege
from the armor-all dept
Under Armour, the clothing brand built on the idea that my belly fat should be clung to by a shirt while I shoot hoops in my backyard, has built up quite a reputation for itself as a trademark bully. To go along with the fun story of its battle against Ass Armor, Under Armour is notorious for trademarking roughly all the things when it comes to sportswear and equipment, and has always had a liberal idea of just how much control the law allows it to have over the use of the word "armor." Most times, very little public attention is whipped up. But now they're picking a fight with God.
In 2013, a Bible-quoting high school football champ named Terrance Jackson, upset that most of the clothing options for his 3-year-old son were covered in skulls and crossbones, decided to start his own “inspirational apparel” company with a scripture-inspired name, Armor & Glory. It recently received some major attention from America’s second-biggest sportswear empire, Under Armour, which demanded the small Maryland company change its name or face all-out legal war.Indeed, much as Ass Armor did, Armor & Glory's name doesn't include the "u," unlike Under Armour. Which is only a minor point, actually, because the chief test here is customer confusion and brand identity, and it takes a more imaginative mind than mine to think up exactly how a company selling a few hundred shirts is going to be mistaken for the clothing company currently chasing Nike for the sportswear crown. More troubling still is the nature of Under Armour's request. The company's legal representation requested not only that all of Armor & Glory's inventory be destroyed, but that it would also have to hand over its domain, profits, and $100k in damages and attorneys' fees.
“It’s trademark bullying at its finest. I’m the little kid in the group and they’re trying to kick dirt on my new shoes,” said Jackson, 37, who said the name came to him one morning, from “the full armor of God” cited in Ephesians 6:11. “When God gave this [name] to me, I never thought once about those guys. We don’t even spell it like them.”
That would equate to about every last dollar the company has ever made, since its 2013 inception. More interesting, for me at least, is that the company's core audience is Christian athletes wearing the gear in part due to the Christianity-inspired names and slogans. Lawyers for Under Armour have gone so far as to state that if Armor & Glory refuses to cease using the bible-inspired name, the result will be "an expensive and time-consuming legal battle." A more bullying statement is difficult to compose. But Jackson, thus far at least, isn't backing down. Why, you ask?
Ed Tomlin, Jackson’s partner and a former director of football development for Under Armour (who says he left on good terms), says “it’s a matter of principle and a matter of faith.” The name, he added, “was inspired by God. … To turn our backs now would be like we were being disobedient.”How about that for a fun First Amendment test? If anything can whip up public support in a David v. Goliath legal battle, it's the injection of some honest to goodness bible-thumping. In fact, Armor & Glory has reportedly increased sales and brand-awareness due to the threat from Under Armour, making it all the more silly for the larger company to have engaged in this silly bit of bullying to begin with.
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Filed Under: armor, trademark
Companies: armor and glory, under armour
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Oh look, another company to go after: Under Armour Deodorant!
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I guess
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Good find
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But seriously,
Wut?
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But also, Christians sport an ancient, cruel execution device as their primary symbol, but skulls and bones are seen as negative?
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The cross is the remembrance and recognition that the Innocent and Perfect One died for all. The Skull and Bones is the sign of those who cared only for themselves and were more than willing to kill all who crossed them.
So yes there is a significant difference between the two.
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Wrong on all counts
How do you think Yoko Lennon would like you wearing jewellery depicting a pistol, then telling her you are remembering john by it. Its beyond creepy, its like the religious are out of their minds.
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Re: Wrong on all counts
Reality will bite when He returns again not as the suffering Servant but as the Lion of Judah, as the Conquering King of Kings, as the Sovereign Lord of Lords, and as Almighty God over all. The nations will rage but fail. He will demonstrate again to all that the Enemy of mankind has been defeated and all will see His Glory and Majesty. Great is His Name and Holy is He.
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Pics, or it didn't happen. Face it. This is delusion. You're deluded when you believe stuff like this is reality.
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Actually, Jesus isn't God, as he said himself when he declared himself to be the Son of Man. As the following Wikipedia article states: The expression "the Son of man" occurs 81 times in the Greek text of the four Canonical gospels , and is used only in the sayings of Jesus. You know, it's Christians like you that give the rest of us a bad reputation.
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Of all the contradictory statements in religion, this one is by far my favorite....
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But it is A-OK when coerced.
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What next, are you going to claim that a mobster telling a shopkeeper that unless they want their store burned down or their kneecaps broken they'd better pay 'protection' is coercion, rather than a simple, generous act of informing someone of the consequences of their actions?
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If only more Christians actually believe and practice that.
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If they don't like homosexuals, then funny thing, neither does their god.
If they don't care whether someone's homosexual or not, would you look at that, neither does their god.
If they think those of other faiths, or even worse, those of no faith, are at best deluded, but more likely horrible people, then their god is right there next to them, backing them up.
If they don't really have a problem with people of different or no faiths, then by pure coincidence, neither does their god.
Like I said, they don't judge anyone, as that would be wrong, they just happen to agree with the judgements passed out by their particular version of god, and it's a complete and totally coincidence that those judgements always match their personal opinions on any given subject.
/poe
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Re: Re: Re: Wrong on all counts
As for Jesus not being God, I know some believe that. Others, like myself, believe the 3 are 1, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Differences like that should not divide us though as we will find out for sure when we get there.
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When you stop and think about it, using the cross really is a very weird symbol. After all, someone being executed on a cross was a very common thing for the time. What makes Christ special was that he did not stay dead.
The cross is like the Roman electric chair or gallows. I can't imagine anyone choosing those to honor someone who died from them....
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Re: Wrong on all counts
They're looking up (to "heaven") with their eyes closed, mumbling under their breath as they imagine a "spirit" which created the universe and will hear their words, and (maybe) do something for them.
If that's not out "of their minds", I don't know what is.
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Re: Re: Wrong on all counts
Do you know why we are looking for life on Mars? They aren't just looking for life, they are looking for the origins of life because they haven't found it here. They figure the planet without life must be the source of life on the planet with life. Talk about being out of your mind.
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The theory of evolution, like everything else in science, is subject to adjustment when new data is gathered. The reality is that humans will never truly know what the exact origin of life is. We won't get answers to the vast majority of the questions we have and we won't even ask most of the questions that are possible to ask because we won't know enough to know what to ask.
When you poke holes in the theory of evolution, it's not the same as if an atheist asserts that they've proven that god doesn't exist or that something in the bible didn't happen according to the biblical record. Science is just a way of looking at the world and adjusting as necessary when previous theories are disproved.
Religion, on the other hand, is a way of blocking out any evidence or logic that might refute your beliefs and strictly adhering to "the word of god" without regard for anything that might contradict it.
In the end, it doesn't matter if evolution happened the way a lot of scientists currently believe it did. If you look at the history of scientific research, it's a history of theories being postulated, challenged, rewritten, overturned, refuted, and replaced. Likely most of what we think is scientifically "true" right now will be clarified or updated or disproved or replaced with new scientific research within 100 years (and that too will experience the same process).
You won't bring people to god by pretending like disproving any point of a human-originated concept refutes all of atheistic belief, anymore than they can refute any point of a human-originated religious belief and snap you out of your blindness. That's something you'll have to come to on your own. Good luck with that.
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Thats just it, that evidence hasn't been found. So you expect people to abandon their views based on evidence yet the evidence isn't there. As far as me abandoning my beliefs, since I believe in the one true God it isn't going to happen. I do hope you will investigate the bible for your own sake though. You will be surprised what you learn as there is far more evidence in the geological record that the bible is true than there is that evolution is true.
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Would Happen:
They, whether individual or group, would become famous worldwide, in scientific circles and out of them, for showing how a universally accepted scientific theory was wrong, either in part or entirely.
Would Not Happen:
The idea of creationism would become the default position, and 'win by default', or even gain any credibility or weight to it's arguments at all.
Evolution, in it's entirety, could be shown to be completely and utterly wrong, and the act of doing so would not, in any way shape or form, 'validate' creationism.
If A is true, that does not mean B must be false, and vice-versa; the 'evolution or creationism' argument is a false dichotomy, as it assumes only two possible choices, that of 'evolution is true, therefore creationism is false', or 'evolution is false, therefore creationism is true', which is simply not the case.
(1)Evolution could be true, and creationism could be false. (2)Creationism could be true, and evolution could be false. (3)Both could be true, in which case a deity/deities does/do exist, and evolution is how species have changed over time, whether through their direct 'intervention' or not. (4)Both could be false, in which evolution is flawed/wrong and not how species change over time, and no deity/deities exist.
I could four possibilities there, and I wouldn't be surprised if I'm missing some, so the idea that there's only two possibilities, and that if one is wrong the other has to be right is just a little absurd.
Even a great many religious people agree that evolution does not conflict with their religious views, and has withstood the scientific rigors and demonstrating itself to be true, or at the very least the most accurate model of explaining the change of species over time.
Also, funny thing about telling someone to 'go read the bible', if they happen to be atheist, odds are good they know it as well, if not better than you do.
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Not many people are lucky enough to have been born of atheist parents. Most of us have to fight our way out. Some are so scarred by the religious experience, they never finish that fight.
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What would you consider valid evidence? Apparently not apples falling to the ground or moons orbiting planets I suppose? How do you explain such phenomena in the absence of gravity?
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Obviously.
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But the logic part is important. I spent the first 20 years of my life as a Christian and even went to a Christian college for a few years. I don't need to read the bible more than I already had. My life is a lot less stressful since.
This forum will get too long if we try to debate every little issue with such a belief, but a simple one is the internal logical inconsistency of the original sin myth. God created the earth and man and the garden and satan and placed man in proximity to the serpent and the tree but didn't give him the knowledge of good and evil, only a warning. He created the situation whereby man was tempted by the serpent. If you were to stick a couple of ignorant young children in a room with a snake and it then bites them, you are morally responsible for what happened, especially if you're omniscient and can see the future and know it's going to happen. Therefore, if the original sin myth were true, god would be responsible for original sin, not man. Yet god condemns man for it.
As for expecting you to drop your faith, I don't. I think expecting others to change their beliefs because of what you personally espouse is arrogant. Evangelism is imperialism of belief. It doesn't matter to me if you continue to believe or not anymore than it matters whether you believe in Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny in spite of the evidence that they don't actually exist.
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Haven't you heard? Mars is the real Atlantis! There was a catastrophe there and the atmosphere started bleeding away, so they migrated here. We're all decended from Martians! That's why the geological record can't prove origins. We'll find it on Mars! Wait'll you hear about the asteroid belt! It's the result of a war between von Neuman machines and destroyed a planet between Mars & Jupiter.
Yuk, yuk. Yeah, I just made that up. Well, me and David Brin's "Existence". It's just as plausible as the BS in the Bible or Koran, maybe moreso.
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Yes, because at least science can provide actual evidence and corrects itself when wrong conclusions are reached. Religion does neither of those things.
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Time to go Political on them
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Go Armor & Glory! :-)
Besides, they've got God on their side, right? It's a sure thing!
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Re: Go Armor & Glory! :-)
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Religion is complicated.
But seriously, all the hate on the cross is so edgy. I'm not Christian, I'm not even particularly religious, but I understand that the crucifix is a symbol of sacrifice- Jesus died to save the rest of humanity, and self-sacrifice, selflessness, these are values I can appreciate, regardless of whether I give a bleep about Christianity's logical consistency or lack thereof.
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Re: Religion is complicated.
For extra bonus points, I for one am eager to hear more about a biblically-inspired legal smackdown, despite aforementioned not caring too much about Jaysus.
For extra extra bonus points, I'm pretty sure anyone trying to convince people here to believe in the Lord Almighty or that they're a bunch of church-manipulated chumps or whatever is wasting their time. I don't think anyone wants to be convinced.
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You're sure right about that. I can't imagine anyone would possibly convert from one side to the other based on a forum argument.
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Also, I thought they made underwear for a full 15 seconds until I read they actually make sports articles...
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Give the kid a break. He's already spent 20 + years in high school.
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