![]() ![]() to obtain a mark or sue for trademark infringement ( though there are still many crucial benefits to registration). Trademark is, in many regards, easier to defend and protect than copyright, especially since there is no registration requirement in the U.S. Which protection to rely is a case-by-case question depending on the actual use that you are trying to stop. Trademark to prevent competitors and others from using it to cause confusion in the marketplace and copyright to prevent most other unwanted copying. This means that, if you design a logo for yourself or your business, you actually may, if the logo qualifies, have two forms of intellectual property protection on it. Nothing in the law makes the two rights mutually exclusive so many logos can and are enforced using both trademark and copyright. In short though, if a logo would qualify for copyright protection as a piece of artwork separate from its use as a corporate identifier, it is copyright protected. CostCo case hinges in part upon a logo stamped onto a watch being copyright protected (thus making the import of the watch a violation of the copyright). Many of them actually qualify for both trademark and copyright protection. However, many ornate or artistic ones do.Īnd here lies the confusion with logos. Since copyright can’t protect a name, colors or the design of the logo, most simple logos simply do not have the required level of creativity to be considered copyrightable. In order for a work to have copyright protection, it must reach a requisite level of creativity. ![]() In short, trademark is designed not to prevent copying, but confusion in the marketplace, thus severely limiting what uses of the logo can be considered infringing. Likewise, Delta Airline and Delta Faucets share a trademark without incident and Apple Computers and Apple Music also shared a mark without major conflict (beyond a scuffle in 1989), that is until Apple entered the music business with iTunes.Īll in all, logos, by their very nature, are used to identify businesses and groups and though trademark protection covers many additional things, it offers a much more narrow scope of protection. However, trademark is also much more limited than copyright in that, where copyright is designed to protect against almost all unlicensed copying that is outside of fair use, trademark only deals with use of the mark that causes confusion in that company’s marketplace.įor example, Ace Hardware certainly has a trademark on their name, but they can’t stop Ace Bandages from also using the name as they are in separate markets (unless you are very careless when doing home repair). ![]() Where copyright doesn’t expand to things such as names, colors, typefaces, designs, etc. In many ways, trademark is much more broad than copyright. As such, logos are generally protected by trademark and enforceable as such. Trademark is about protecting things that identify a business in the marketplace and logos are among the most important means of identification. When most people think of intellectual property and logos, they leap to trademark and for good reason. So where are the lines drawn? The answers aren’t very simple and requires looking deeper into what copyright and trademark protect and, even then, there aren’t very many clear answers to give, just a lot of gray area that has to be taken one case at a time. Logos are one of those spaces of intellectual property law where there is a great deal of overlap between two areas, in this case copyright and trademark, and businesses are known for using both to protect their logos from undesired use. Trademark covers business names, slogans and other items used to identify it in the marketplace. Copyright covers creative works of expression fixed into a tangible medium of expression. To hear intellectual property attorneys describe it, it seems so simple. ![]()
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