Legality of running with another company's graphics?

Only thing required on a trailer is reg. tag and annual insp. sticker. Trademarked logos would fall under copyright laws. The liberty to display anything else is only because some beltway bureaucrat hasn't realized a way to expand the bureau or charge fines off of it.

 

Remember the poor schmuck that owned some sort of construction business. Traded in his pickup at CarMax, got wholesaled and exported to the Middle East. ISIS mounted guns on it, next thing guys sees his old pickup with his company name on it on the TV news used by terrorists. He got death threats because of it.
we haul used trailers going from auction site to dealer or dealer to customer or whatever with company names, logos all the time. No law against it, just dumb for them not to deidentify the unit. But that costs money.

 

Those "Swift trailers" are most likely leased to Coca-Cola. Swift does that all the time for companies like Coke, UPS, and Fed-ex. They give those companies a cherry deal on trailer leasing in exchange for some freight. Swift will not sell a trailer with their logo in tact for liability reasons.

You may still see M.S. carrier trailers still on the road. If they are it is because Swift still owns them. If you look closely at the sold trailers, 'M.S.' from the 'M.S. Carriers' will be removed or covered up. Swift retains rights to the M.S. carrier name and will not sell a trailer with that logo intact.

 

It doesn't matter what you have on the trailer. What counts is the information on the doors of the cab. There you have to have the company name, where it home based, and all the appropriate numbers. That's the way it was when I was driving a few years back.