Shielding against imitation

While the Lambert review recommends that business should better exploit universities, there's one institution that's rather miffed at being exploited by Lambert. The Open University has written to complain at Lambert's infringement of its trademark. The OU's logo is a blue U-shaped shield with an O in the top left-hand corner; the review's is the same but with a B in the top left-hand corner.

A spokesman for the OU said: "Imitation is the greatest form of flattery - although the OU shield is regarded as a design classic and I'm not sure the Lambert version is going to attract the same praise. That said, we do have to take trademark infringement seriously, so we will be asking them politely to consider a different design."