Some questions about trademarks...

[adum]

I've been researching about trademarks online, but I can't seem to find the answers I'm looking for.

Basically what I want to know is what counts as trademark infringement? Suppose I put a sports team logo on a product and tried to sell it without any licensing, how bad is it to do that and what would be the likelihood that I get in legal trouble?

What if I were to simply write out the name of a sports team in generic text and put it on the same product? Would that also count as trademark infringement?

Or what if the sports team had a nickname and I wrote that out in generic text on my product?

Would the color of my product also be a problem if it had similar colors to those of the sports team?

Thanks for your help.

[adum]

Anyone? 10char

[jmac07]

The copyright or trademark of the sports team is often found on the image iteslf. Since the image has been trademarked, it has legally become the property of the sports team therefore you must ask for permission in order to use that image. For example, my college team is the cardinals, and our mascot/ logo looks very similar to the Iowa state cyclone image. I know that our college had to go through the legal process of attaining the rights to use this image, even if it was the least bit scewed. you could get yourself into quite some trouble infringing on the trademark of a sports team, since the logos themselvs are what represent the team and are often the face of the franchise/ and are highly recognizable.