Business Notes MARKETING

Harvard University, whose business school has long been a training ground for some of the nation's top corporate minds, has decided that it will no longer give away its profitable name gratis. By January 1991, companies that produce everything from sweat shirts to chairs to coffee mugs emblazoned with the name Harvard, the university coat of arms or the motto VERITAS (truth) will have to pay for the privilege. Despite an endowment of some $4.5 billion, the oldest U.S. university can always find uses for an extra $500,000 a year, the amount that the trademark license could eventually produce.

Harvard tested its product appeal during its 350th anniversary in 1986, and has looked closely at trademark possibilities in Japan. The take from anniversary merchandise was about $50,000, and for the past three years items led by a Harvard University line of menswear have generated $130,000 annually in royalties in Japan. Harvard would like to license a maximum of 100 U.S. companies to produce merchandise.