Knight Eady Sports Group
It turns out the Vestavia Hills Rebels aren’t the only ones who lay claim to the 1Rebel logo the school system started using on or about 2016.
When the school system’s trademark attorney filed its trademark registration with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, he learned there was another company based in London, England, using it as well that already had filed a notice that it intends to the use logo in the United States.
That company, One Rebel Ltd, is a fitness studio that uses an almost identical 1Rebel logo in the United Kingdom, Australia and a few other places on its fitness apparel, equipment and training materials, attorney Marcus Chatterton told the Vestavia Hills Board of Education Monday night.
Its logo is “very nearly identical” to the one used by the Vestavia Hills Board of Education, Chatterton said. The font is slightly different, and their primary colors are black and white instead of red and blue, he said.
The Vestavia Hills school board could fight the London company’s registration attempt based on the idea that the Vestavia Hills Board of Education is the “senior user” of the logo in the United States, but at the recommendation of the London company, the school board chose a different route.
Instead of fighting to retain exclusive rights to use the logo in the United States, the Vestavia Hills school board on Monday night approved a “co-existence agreement” that would allow both parties to use the logo in specific geographic areas.
Under this agreement, the Vestavia Hills Board of Education would have exclusive rights to use the 1Rebel logo within a 250-mile radius of Vestavia Hills. This includes the Atlanta and Nashville markets, which could potentially be valuable to the London company if it decided to enter those markets, Chatterton said.
However, the London company would have exclusive rights to use its logo outside that 250-mile radius, Chatterton said. If either party desired to have a brick-and-mortar logo usage in the other’s territory, it would need to seek approval with the other party to do so, he said.
School board Vice President Scott Brown asked Chatterton what that would mean for online sales and whether it would prevent a company with a license to sell Vestavia Hills Board of Education merchandise from selling its 1Rebel merchandise to an alumnus in California.
Chatterton said he would not anticipate any such ban regarding online sales. The prohibition would be more toward any brick-and-mortar presence in the other party’s jurisdiction, he said. For example, the One Rebel Ltd company would be prohibited from opening a fitness studio with that logo within 250 miles of Vestavia Hills, he said.
One Rebel Ltd does have a website that sells some merchandise in the United States, but the company currently doesn’t have any brick-and-mortar locations in the United States, Chatterton said.
Brown said the co-existence agreement would be a lot cheaper than litigation to fight the London company. “Hence the recommendation,” Chatterton said, noting that he has no reason to believe the company was copying the Vestavia Hills logo. Both parties apparently began using their respective logos about the same time, unknown to one another, he said.
CLASS SIZES & TEACHERS
In other business Monday night, the school board heard a report about the district’s classroom sizes and the school system’s teaching corps from Brooke Wedgworth, one of two directors of curriculum and instruction.
The Cognia accreditation group recommends that school systems have no more than 18-22 students per class in grades K-3, no more than 22-25 students per class in grades 4-6 and no more than 25-28 students per class in grades 7-12 core classes, Superintendent Todd Freeman said.
According to Wedgworth, the average class sizes in Vestavia Hills public schools are:
- Kindergarten – 14.4
- First grade – 17.5
- Second grade – 17.3
- Third grade – 18.2
- Fourth grade – 19.4
- Fifth grade – 21.4
- Liberty Park Middle School – 21
- Pizitz Middle School – 24
- Freshman Campus – 20
- Vestavia Hills High School – 20
Freeman said he is pleased with the class sizes in Vestavia Hills. Wedgworth said that in order to keep class sizes low, the school system has to hire more teachers than the state will fund. This year, Vestavia Hills pays the salaries and benefits for 110 teachers fully with local funds instead of state or federal funding, she said.
The quality of Vestavia’s teaching corps also is important, she said. The school system has 61 teachers certified by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards and 43 teachers with special certification for teaching math or science (better known as TEAMS teachers), she said.
Of all the teachers, the highest degree for 143 of them (24%) is a bachelor’s degree, while 407 (67%) have a master’s degree, 39 (6%) have a specialist degree, and 17 (3%) have a doctorate.
