Tower Car Wash Opens…But With Objections
The tower that is more than 200 feet and 20 miles short of being the UT Tower is open for business — but it may not be able to stay quite as it is.
Tower Express Car Wash opened earlier this month in Cedar Park after attracting plenty of attention during its construction.
Its pinnacle is a 60-foot tower that bears the distinctive look of you-know-what, complete with faux columns, windows, and clock.
Alums first noticed the resemblance in October, and the car wash opened early this month.
Some said the UT copycatting was tacky; the University says it wasn’t authorized and must be modified.
Which sparked a whole new round of discussion in the local paper. By taking action with a small-business owner, was UT playing Goliath to car wash owner Bob Tesch’s David?
Craig Westemeier, UT’s assistant athletic director for trademark licensing, says a university — like a company — can’t let its brand be used without any affiliation.
“We can’t let everybody just use these marks,” Westemeier says. “It really devalues what we’re trying to do as a university. If they become so pervasively used, they don’t maintain their authenticity or integrity or their unique nature in being connected with the University.”
UT maintains a list of its trademarks, and the Tower is among them. Tesch, Westemeier says, never reached out to UT officials before construction to make sure it was permissible.
Now the responsibility, he says, lies with the car wash to change the design so it looks less like the official Tower.
Tesch, for his part, is lying low for now. “There’s been so much written, there’s been so much exposure, that I’m just not comfortable making any statements now other than what I already have,” he says.
After the issues are “taken care of,” he says, he may speak again.
Photo by Larry Treuter.
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4 Comments
Where do the State draw the line on what private citizens can "quote" in their architecture? It’s a public building, why does it have a TM?
I think the UT System needs to back off this one. This is flattery, not a trademark infringement! He’s not selling UT Tower mock ups. And in fact, he should be allowed to display an Orange Tower when the Longhorns win, during graduation, and so forth. Not everyone can "buy" a view of the Tower.
President William Powers Jr., you need to get the lawyers to back off on this one. You need to focus on education, not building codes. My family are all UT Graduates and none agree with this frivilious law suit.
I remember when the film "Deadly Tower" was filmed in Louisiana at the State Capital. A production that could have brought a bunch of money to Texas and Austin. It worked for the movie, why not the car wash. I would change the name to Cajun Carwash and claim the Louisiana State Capital building.
Robert
Buildings constructed before Dec. 1, 1990 cannot be registered.
http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ41.pdf