Iowa State’s revised trademark policy dominated much of the Student Government Senate meeting Wednesday evening, in which a resolution introduced by Sen. Sam Freestone called for President Wendy Wintersteen to reprimand the originator of the revised policy “up to termination.”

Many senators were concerned about the looming trademark policy and its effect on campus student organizations. The policy, released on Aug. 1, was released with the intent of protecting the university’s brand. 

According to the policy, if an organization decides to use Iowa State University, Iowa State, or ISU in its name, then the verbiage must follow the name instead of proceed it. For example, “ISU ____ Club” must change its name to “____ Club at ISU.”

Prior to debate on the bill, however, the Director of Trademark Licensing Office Leesha Zimmerman and University Counsel Michael Norton came to the meeting on behalf of the Trademark and Licensing Office to discuss the policy with Student Government.

Many senators raised questions regarding the policy, including Sen. Sandeep Stanley, who asked if the ISU NORML lawsuit from several years ago was a primary cause of the policy. Norton denied this claim. 

Freestone asked if longstanding organizations and events will be grandfathered in or if they have been considered with the writing of this policy.

According to Norton, this aspect of the policy is still being worked on and officials are working with those organizations to find a resolution.

Norton expressed to the Student Government that they are partially to blame for the policy as he said they had a voice in the process of the policy being written.

“This is on you partially — you need to go back to students and say ‘we were involved’,” Norton said.

Sen. Michael Tupper countered that having only one representative for the voice of students on a campus of 35,000 is not proportionate and does not accurately give a voice to the students.

Norton said that the university needs control, and that a lack of control can make the university lose the trademark on a federal level: “If we give up control, we lose control.”

The resolution regarding the trademark policy was discussed for several hours due to many senators’ concerns with the language being too harsh and aggressive.

“I, too, think the wording of the bill is rather harsh and detrimental to the cause that Freestone is advocating for, which I think is noble,” said Speaker Cody Woodruff. “But I do think the language is a bit much.”

The point was also brought up by Woodruff that the resolution denouncing the trademark policy calls for the termination of the author of the policy, and the massive implications and ramifications of this bill with that in it.

“This resolution calls for and could potentially result in a termination,” Woodruff said. “We are potentially talking about taking away someone’s job, someone’s livelihood, someone who calls themselves a Cyclone.”

The resolution was killed at the meeting tonight, but senators are looking forward to continue to discuss this issue, and rewrite a resolution as they felt that the language in the current bill was too large of an issue to move forward.