By: Justin McNaughton

I graduated from BYU in 2001 and attended law school in Anheuser-Busch Hall at Washington University in St. Louis. Had a great laugh when I read this week that BYU had accidentally adopted Anheuser-Busch's trademark RISE AS ONE for its football slogan for the 2014 season. Anheuser-Busch has a registration for this mark for "promoting TV programs for others; advertising and marketing services, namely, promoting entertainment in the field of sporting events" (i.e., advertising for the World Cup).

BYU has been ranked by U.S. News as the nation's most "stone cold sober" school for around 17 years. A cobranding campaign, just never would have worked. Fortunately, it looks like BYU may be able to keep its ranking; the football slogan has reportedly been changed to RISE UP.

It pays to do a trademark search before adopting a trademark. This could have been avoided by simply typing www.riseasone.com into a web browser, which would have returned Budweiser's website, or . . . just watching the World Cup. More often it involves checking the records of the United States Patent and Trademark Office or hiring a professional searcher to determine whether there are prior users of a trademark.

The lawyers at Trademarkology provide trademark registration services backed by the experience and service of one of the nation's oldest law firms. Click here to begin the process of protecting your brand name with a federally registered trademark.