Businessman sues Bush party for W

Gossett says he was inspired by firefighters at Ground Zero

A Texan businessman is suing the Republican party over a logo it plastered on bumper stickers across the US during last year's election.

Jerry Gossett says he developed a logo combining the letter W - President Bush's middle initial - a flag and the number 43, as he is the 43rd president.

He says he took it to the Republicans in the wake of the 2001 World Trade Center attacks but was turned away.

The party has dismissed the lawsuit as frivolous, the Associated Press says.

Mr Gossett does not agree.

"When 9/11 happened, the image of the firemen raising the flagpole at Ground Zero inspired my drawing of the symbol that I eventually came up with," he told the BBC News website.

"After I'd gotten it copyrighted, I went to the Republican National Committee to see if we could market it through them, and they determined a couple of weeks later they could not because of contractual agreements with other vendors."

But, he said, he later saw a similar logo become ubiquitous in the president's re-election campaign.

'Powerless'

At first he "stewed", he said, "because I felt I was powerless against the RNC and the people in Washington".

I'd vote for President Bush tomorrow if I could Jerry Gossett

But last month he filed suit and he is now seeking unspecified damages.

"We want the record to be clear that Jerry came up with this," his lawyer Scott Hemingway told the BBC News website.

"That has to do with right and wrong in a case where we think there has been an injustice. The monetary award is up to the jury." A lawyer for the Spalding Group, which supplied campaign materials for the Republican party, told AP Mr Gossett's logo does not meet the legal requirement of being "substantially similar" to the one the party used.

The lawyer, William Hollander, said the official logo had been in the works as far back as 1999.

Mr Gossett has been marketing items with his logo through his own website, georgew43.com, for the past three years - which he says a jury should take into account.

"What would three years of anybody's life be worth to them?"

No trial date has been set.

Mr Gossett said the incident has not soured him on the president or the Republican party.

"I am still a Republican - I just feel like the RNC has made some decisions that President Bush would not have agreed with and the highest echelons of the party would not agree with."

"I'd vote for President Bush tomorrow if I could," said Mr Gossett.