The city of Dallas has the perfect logo. Now it’s fighting a trademark battle to protect it

Dallas is prepared to spend big to protect its logo. In fact, the Dallas City Council voted last week to spend up to $200,000 as part of a federal lawsuit to cancel the trademark of Triple D Gear, a Dallas apparel company that the city argues uses a logo so similar to its own that it causes confusion.

One sign of a good civic mark, whether it’s a logo or a flag, is whether it becomes a symbol of popular expression. People get tattoos of the Chicago flag, for example, but not the flag of Illinois (hence the state’s efforts to redesign it). The Dallas logo, then, has done its job. Maybe too well.

The city’s logo, which has been in use since 1972, features concentric D shapes made from three stripes with a stylized tree in the center. It’s a great logo—minimalist and contemporary, even at more than 50 years old. The city considered scrapping the logo in 2015, but ultimately decided against it.

According to the city, Dallas registered its logo as a trademark in 1972 in the state of Texas. It wasn’t until 2020 that the city filed for federal trademark protection. By that time, Triple D Gear had already registered its own logo with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). Its logo—three concentric Ds with a star in the middle—had been trademarked since 2014 for use on apparel and athletic gear. It later filed for another trademark in 2020 for a logo showing just the concentric Ds.

When Triple D Gear founder Turo Sanchez appeared on Good Morning Texas in 2018, he said, “Basically, we took the city of Dallas logo and we just put a star in it and tilted it.” When the show’s host joked that they’d get sued by the city, Sanchez’s co-owner noted that the company’s logo was trademarked.

“It’s a David and Goliath story here,” Sanchez tells Fast Company about the legal fight. “It’s the big man going against the small business and trying to overpower, especially when the small businesses have been doing everything by the book.” He says a trial date is scheduled for May 5.

The city of Dallas, which tells Fast Company it does not comment on pending litigation, filed a complaint over the apparel company’s logo in 2021. The USPTO denied Dallas’s petition in 2023, according to the Dallas Morning News, which first reported the legal battle, and the city then filed suit. At issue in the denied petition is whether the city has the right to use the logo on clothing, which Triple D Gear specifically included in its trademark application. The USPTO said the city had not provided enough evidence to prove that it had established use of its logo for apparel.

In a brief filed last week, the city of Dallas argued that the USPTO’s Trademark Trial and Appeal Board “committed clear legal error” in requiring it to show evidence that it specifically used its logo on shirts, noting that its use of the logo on other goods and services, including uniforms for employees, should be enough to prove its case.

Perhaps the best example of an often-imitated and beloved city logo is the I ♥ NY mark, designed by Milton Glaser. New York has taken great pains to protect the mark, with the New York State Department of Economic Development sending out countless cease-and-desist letters to knockoff versions and requiring prior approval and a license agreement to use it.

Dallas has a license agreement with Southern Methodist University (SMU), which has its own concentric D logo that includes its mustang mascot; Triple D Gear filed suit against SMU in 2023.

Dallas has such an iconic logo that it’s inspired imitators. Whether or not it has the trademark to it, though, remains to be seen. A federal court could decide.

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