In the three weeks following the announcement of the Harvd name policy, the policy has begun to come into its own.

Already, precedents have been set on points that were at best ambiguously delineated in its original incarnation adopted on Fen. 9.

Contrary to expectations of bureaucratic entanglement, putting it into practice has been surprisingly smooth.

"It's been manageable--busy, but manageable," says Provost Harvey V. Fineberg '67.

Mass. Hall officials seemed pleased with the policy's reception.

"The policy has evoked a lot of inquiry about appropriate use of the Harvard name, which is a good thing," Fineberg says.

"There seems to be general understanding of the importance of Harvard's protecting the use of its name," he says.

Under the new policy, the default position has shifted from allowing members of the Harvard community to use the University's names until asked to stop, to preventing members of the community from using the name until receiving explicit authorization, except under special circumstances.

"What it did was it made something explicit that had been implicit in the policy," says Associate Provost Dennis Thompson, referring to the caution against linking Harvard's name to research projects and books that has now been codified.

"There was a very strong sense we should make it clear that the burden of proof is on the people who use the [name]," Thompson says.

The new policy is more proactive because it promotes the use of Harvard's name in a positive light, instead of only stepping in when a suspected violation turned up.

"Now there needs to be a compelling reason to call a project or publication 'Harvard,'" says Assistant Provost Sarah Wald.

"It is a change in culture somewhat," she says. "It may take a little time to change the practices."

The Rationale

The new policy stems from last year's University Committee on Information Technology (UCIT), which was chaired by Fineberg.

The group of faculty and administrators split into three subcommittees; one dealing with the academic uses of information technology in teaching and research, another focusing on partnerships with industry, and a third devoted solely to intellectual property.

The latter two committees, Wald says, realized that they had to deal with the underlying "big issue" of how Harvard itself uses its name before tacking the issues they were assigned to resolve.

"Inevitably, when you get into intellectual property rights, one of the features of intellectual property is the use of the Harvard name," President Neil L. Rudenstine explains.

The issue becomes more complex with the increase in different kinds of multimedia ventures.

"We know what to do with a book--you write the book, you get the royalties. But it's not clear what you do with a CD-ROM, or you decide to broadcast your lectures or your course. Whose property is that? Is it the University's because we pay the salary?" he says.

The UCIT developed a draft of the use of name policy last summer and circulated them among faculty and administrators in the fall. The Corporation, Harvard's governing body, formally enacted the proposals by vote on Feb. 9.

Hitching a Free Ride

Philosophical concerns aside, the new policy also seeks to counteract the tendency of Harvard faculty, students and staff to use the marketability of Harvard's name to highlight individual or departmental projects.

"It has become clear that more and more people are wanting to use Harvard name to get attention," Thompson says. "It gets more attention than it has before."

Wald agrees. "Attaching the name to an internal project can make it more valuable," she says.

One area of particular interest, says Fineberg, has been using Harvard's name to label research projects. More often than not, the policy does not allow a departmental project to call itself a "Harvard Project," but permits the project to identify itself with its school if the dean approves.

"The issue there is where the project is based," he says.

For example, researchers at the Harvard School of Education recently began a study of tenure practices in higher education called the "Harvard Project on Tenure." University officials, says Thompson son, thought the name was quite misleading.

"You'd think it would be on internal tenure," he says, nothing that the findings of the study would appear to the outside world to be an official Harvard statement on tenure policies.

The researchers were asked to rename the project. They did so voluntarily.

In deciding whether 'to authorize the use of the name 'Harvard University,' University officials will look at whether the project or work represents an individual, a specific research group, an entire department, or the University as a whole--as well as whether the University wants to express, "some sort of institutional endorsement," Wald says.

Such examples, officials say, will be rare.

"The general feelings of the deans is that it should be only when there's a specific, compelling reason to do," says Wald.

Rudenstine says members of the community who wish to attach the Harvard name to a specific project of body of work will be held to high standards before receiving authorization. Otherwise, the University runs the risk of incomplete coverage.

"If anyone can, as it were, use without thinking the Harvard name and shield, it may seem that the University may make a statement about something where there are tremendously many different statements,' he says.

In all other situations, the University will require that professor, students or staff change the name of their planned projects to clarify its precise relationship to the University--often by simply calling a project the Project on X at Harvard University.'

"The whole idea is to avoid the implication of endorsement by the University," Wald says.

Digital Precedents

One student, says Fineberg, even approached the administration regarding his Internet home page. The student, who was unnamed, wanted to know if he could continue to display the Harvard shield on his personal home page on the Harvard web server.

Taken in its most extreme interpretation, the new policy would prohibit student use of Harvard's insignias on web pages, since such use might imply a University endorsement of a student's online content.

In this situation, the University has taken a position and set a precedent--the insignia graphics can stay, but only as long as the web page resides on the Harvard server.

"There a kind of de minimus assumption behind this," Thompson says. "We wish people would follow the policy to the letter, but we're not going to look at every small violation of it."

However, if student were to use the Harvard insignia on a personal web page in conjunction with selling a product, advocating a political cause or soliciting support for charity, Harvard's stance would markedly harden.

"I'm afraid we would have to come down on that," Thompson says.

The Faculty of Arts of Sciences currently prohibits commercial use of the Harvard networks, regardless of whether the Harvard shield is used, but its policies are less clear as to using individual web space for political or charitable causes.

In the five weeks since the policy was enacted, there have have been some requests to use Harvard's name that have been turned down, but often these situations were resolved by asking the applicants to clarify the titles of their projects.

"I do know there were some publications where it was turned down," Fineberg says.

"They weren't able to use the exact title they initially proposed, but it doesn't mean they can't identify themselves as being part of the Harvard Graduate School of Education, for example," he says.

The Newspaper Formerly Known as The Harvard Crimson?

Requests for using school names must go through the corresponding dean. Requests for using the name 'Harvard University' must go through the Provost's office.

Certain exceptions--such as using the name "Harvard" to refer to parts of Harvard College and student activities within the College and the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences--are built into the new policy.

"Harvard, traditionally and historically, has just meant Harvard College," Wald says. As a result, organizations within the College need only turn to Dean of the College Harry R.Lewis '68 to seek approval for including 'Harvard' in their names, rather than going all the way to the Provost.

Current undergraduate activities are unlikely to be affected by the new policy.

"I would not anticipate that there would be a unilateral attempt to change the name of The Harvard Crimson," Wald says.

The Provost's office has also given blanket approval to certain organizations within Harvard, such as the Art Museums, which routinely use Harvard's name in joint catalogs with other museums.

Although all new requests to use Harvard's name will be subject to the new policy, even existing programs that use Harvard's name may be "subject to review," Wald says.

"But we don't anticipate that we'll do a full University-wide inventory," she adds.

"We're very committed to not making it administratively burdensome," Wald says.

Harvard TM

But while Harvard can legislate members of the University as it chooses, those outside the wall of Harvard Yard are not subject to the dictates of the Provost's office.

The policy only applies to internal use of the Harvard name. Outsiders who wish to license Harvard's name--a T-shirt printer, for example--must still pay royalties through the Office for Technology and Trademark Licensing.

"There's no real change in the structure of the policy with respect to royalty agreements," Fineberg says. "Non-Harvard groups are not entitled to use the name for free."

Harvard owns its name and has registered it as a trademark with the government. In fact, Harvard owns multiple trademarks, ranging from the words "Harvard University" to the "Veritas Shield" and even the "Squashit," a hand gesture developed at the School of Public Health for urban youth wishing to avoid a fight.

As a result, every T-shirt, pen or mug that bears the Harvard name must be approved by the University, a task which falls to the trademark office.

The office requires manufactures of goods with the Harvard insignia to pay a royalty, which is used to fund student aid in FAS. In addition, the trademark office makes sure the Harvard name is being used "tastefully" and that the goods are of a high quality, says Joyce M. Brinton, director of the trademark office.

"Currently, the office has licensed more than 150 companies to produce Harvard merchandise. Brinton says these licences are mostly granted to clothing and memento manufacturers.

The right to control its name belongs to Harvard, not because it has purchased the trademark, but because it has been using its name through time, says Frank Conners, an attorney for the University, though he says Harvard does gain benefit by registering its trademark with the government.

Brinton says the University can force a company to stop using its trademarks if the company is implying an endorsement from the University.

"The question would be would anybody in their right mind think its something associated with the University," Brinton says.

Conners says the University can step take a company to court in cases "where there is a likelihood of public confusion."

The trademark office makes use of this power by inspecting area vendors of Harvard paraphernalia.

"Folks in the office go around to shops and look at manufacturers' labels and make sure they are licensed," Brinton says.

These 't-shirt detectives' check to see if the manufacturers have contracted with the University and if not, they are usually offered a contract, she said.

If a company refuses to license through Brinton's office, the University will order it to "cease and desist."

"We're constantly going after companies, but these matters rarely rise to level of litigation," Conners says. "We usually only go after the most egregious cases."

Both Conners and Brinton say the University does not usually pursue local business using the name Harvard for unrelated services, like pizza parlors or dry cleaners.

Typically, Harvard has not registered its trademark in those service fields, and so has no claim, particularly against the many business of Harvard, Mass. using the name of the town for their firms.

But Conners adds that the fact that a company is located in Harvard, Mass. does not give them an unassailable right to use the name Harvard.

For example, an aspiring entrepreneur wishing to start a college in Harvard, Mass. could not name the university "Harvard." That name is taken.

Ultimately, Fineberg emphasizes that the new name policy--sparked by the progress of information technology--will continue to evolve.

"over time we'll have the accumulation of case experience which will help to clarify [the policy[," he says.

"We don't think it's carved in stone for all time," Fineberg says. "It's a living policy.