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Well brothers, the Marine Corps has finally lost it's mind. It has announced that it will be unlawful to own any merchadise with the Marine Corps Emblem displayed (hats, T-shirts, car tags, etc.) without the approval of the Marine Corps. They are saying it is a violation of the new Trade Mark law that the Marine Corps now has in force and will soon be enforcing.
I'm a member of a strictly Marine Corps web site called togetherweserved. It has over 1.3 million active duty, retired, and civilian Marines as members. The site was notified this week of the new law and told to remove any symbols of the Marine Corps from it's pages. Symbols such as many of us here at BBF as Avatars.
I guess the next step will be to tell many of us with Marine Tatoos to have them removed. Sad brothers, sad.

TELL THEM TO STICK THEIR NEW LAW UP THEIR ASSTERIC, THAT YOU ARE A REAL MARINE AND IF THEY DON'T LIKE IT TO TRY TO MAKE YOU DO IT, THEN DO WHAT ALL MARINES WERE TRAINED TO DO.
PA THE OLD MAN OF THE SEA
SEMPER FI

CS, thanks for the scoop. That's going to be a tough law to enforce. Can't imagine this holding for too long. In my opinion, one of the many things the Marine Corps is good at is recognizing when something doesn't work and adjusting. I'm sure there's more to follow when this begins to filter out across the Globe.

I have to wonder what is the real intent here. I feel quite sure the the Corps has no problem with anyone displaying the Eagle-Globe and Anchor, be it on a tee shirt or a bumper sticker. However, I can see them getting highly PIZZED if someone tries to make mockery of our Corps by displaying a "non-reg" bit of paraphernalia. This new ruling probably gives them the teeth to chew out the arse and spit it into the face of someone who would try to make a buck by mocking my Corps. Yall don't get nuts till the whole story is out. Whatever is going down is probably in our best interests as well as the Corps.

I also read where the marines can't roll the sleeve's up on there fatigue's anymore. God help the leadership of the "NEW MARINES"!

They're not taking my Marine Corps tattoo off!! Good to see I'm in good company, didn't realize there were so many Marines on this site. Semper Fi...Oooh-rah...and all that good trash.

I have read the Q&A on the official USMC website - http://www.marines.mil/unit/divpa/tmlo/Pages/faq.aspx
I am not a lawyer, but this appears to be aimed at persons and enterprises wanting to use the Marine Corps emblem for commercial purposes, not an individual using it for private purposes. This is similar to what colleges do with their official logos. It's ok for you to have an FSU or UGA bumper sticker (or tattoo) with the official logo, but you can't print of those bumper stickers (or T-Shirts) and sell them without getting proper license. I have bought a lot of stuff from Sgt. Grit over the years. I guess they will be selling only officially licensed merchandise now. Semper Fi

The way it was explained to me by an active duty Major was that it is strickly a business decision on the part of the Corps. They have realized that there is big money to be made by trade marking the Marine Corps emblem. They will still allow merchadise to be sold, except that the vender will have to pay the Marine Corps a fee for the rights to use it's symbol. Unfortunatly, it will affect a lot of other area's such as the web site I mentioned. This web site (togetherweserved) exsist only for the benefit of Marines. Care packages sent to Marines in war zones, Patriot Guards who escort fallen Marines home, legal advice to Marine veterans, support for active duty Marines in many ways from money to grief counceling. But, as of this week we had to remove our beloved Eagle, Globe and Anchor emblem from our web site. They told us we could use USMC beause there is no trade mark value to that.
Venders such as "Sgt. Grit" a Marine speciality store that supplies every thing from hat pins, MC flags, to Marine caskets will have to discontinue many of it's items because of the new law. Sgt. Grit made this announcement in the last catalog.

"The Marine Corps market is going to change. The marine Corps has decided to licence the Eagle, Globe, and Anchor, "USMC", and U.S. Marine Corps", and derivatives. This will affect us and our customers in two ways, First, our designs must meet new licensing guidlines. There will be a royalty percentage that will require us to change price on many items. As this catalog goes to print, we do not know what that percentage willbe, or when it will start. Prices will be updated on the internet as soon as we have more information. Your patience and understanding will be greatly appreciated."

Improvise, Adapt, Overcome!
Semper Fi
Sgt Grit

As we all understand very well "A Marine can be the best friend you can ever have, a mad Marine can be the very worst enemy that you would ever want." There are a lot of very mad Marines right now about this.

FishingPadre wrote:They're not taking my Marine Corps tattoo off!! Good to see I'm in good company, didn't realize there were so many Marines on this site. Semper Fi...Oooh-rah...and all that good trash.

FishingPadre, you're in VERY good company on this board! Got fellas representing many different eras of service... even our own WWII statesman, FUTCHCAIRO -- affectionally known to us as PA (would call him a hero but know he would say that those who paid all were the heroes).

Quite a few threads related to the Corps show up here from time to time. Here's a few you might appreciate.
http://www.bigbendfishing.net/phpBB3/vi ... =5&t=27240
http://www.bigbendfishing.net/phpBB3/vi ... =5&t=27213
http://www.bigbendfishing.net/phpBB3/vi ... =5&t=29229

Welcome aboard and SEMPER FIDELIS!

Great posts, thanks for the links.

macdaddy wrote:I also read where the marines can't roll the sleeve's up on there fatigue's anymore. God help the leadership of the "NEW MARINES"!

Ya'll aways rolled em up inside out anyway and you're more than welcome to display our embem.



seriously, it sounds like a law that can't and won't be enforced.

WHEN I FIRST HEARD ABOUT THIS I FIGURED THAT IT WAS SOMEMORE GARBAGE THAT OBAMA WAS SLINGING OUT, HE HAD BETTER BE CAREFUL ABOUT MESSIN AROUND WITH THESE OLD JARHEADS THAT ARE STILL HANGIN AROUND, HE MIGHT GET A RUDE AWAKENING , OR OTHERWISE.
PA
SEMPER FI

Marines don't wear "fatigues". That's someone else. Marines don't get tired, at least that's what they told me.