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If you see something, sue something.
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority is challenging copycats attempting to obtain the trademark for its “If you see something, say something” counterterrorism slogan born in the wake of 9/11.
Midwestern T-shirt hawker Gregory Pastor applied to trademark the catchphrase in order to advertise a clothing store in the small village of Mantua, Ohio, according to paperwork at the US Patent and Trademark Office.
And a cyberstalking watchdog group based in Scottsdale, Ariz., NCAP Security Systems, filed an application last February to trademark the alliterative six-word motto.
The MTA is moving quickly to protect the slogan it trademarked in 2007 and plans to mount challenges before a federal trial and appeals board against both applicants.
“The slogan is not allowed for use in communications other than the intended anti-terrorism message,” said MTA spokesman Sam Zambuto.
In fact, the agency allows 54 entities, from the Department of Homeland Security to the Maryland Natural Resources Police, to use the catchphrase in public campaigns.
Federal officials say the trademark office does not reject applications unless an examiner deems it will “cause confusion with a prior registered mark.”
But it’s not the first time the MTA has taken a hard line against knockoff artists to protect its favorite catchphrase.
Unapproved copycats — including Harvard — have popped up “several times” in the last few years.
Transit officials sent a terse letter to the Ivy League school in 2008 after it attempted to use the slogan to advertise a student-safety campaign on campus, an MTA spokesman said.
The MTA didn’t realize that campus security at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn., also employs the phrase on posters. It is now looking into that encroachment.
“See Something, Say Something” was coined by Allen Kay, chairman of the ad agency Korey Kay & Partners, which counted the MTA as a longtime client.
Over the last 10 years, Kay’s pithy slogan has gone global. Even the mayor of Amsterdam uses it — with permission.
But it enrages Kay when competitors try to bastardize his work.
“I don’t think they have a right to it,” he said of the competing trademark applicants. “I live for original ideas.
“It galls me anytime someone does something derivative — or outright steals. I think that’s despicable.”