#Copyright my logo registration

#Copyright my logo registration

Federal registration provides a public record there is constructive notice nationwide of your claim, which means others have a duty to inquire to ensure they are not infringing others’ marks. Anyone using a “confusingly similar” mark will be considered infringers, (unless they have established rights in their local area as a common law trademark before your federal registration-see below) and you can pursue them to stop using the mark and potentially seek damages, especially if the infringement is willful. Registration gives you a legal presumption of ownership of the trademark in connection with the goods and services listed on your registration. A registered trademark protects your brand by providing you certain legal rights. The legal definition of a trademark is a word, phrase, symbol, and/or design that identifies and distinguishes the source of goods and services. Someone can independently create an original artistic work similar to your logo and you could not prevent them from using it.

This exclusionary protection provided by a copyright is too narrow for a logo. A work is considered original if it is not copiedfrom some other preexisting work it does not need to be novel or unique. Federal registration of a trademark gives the owner exclusive nationwide use of their mark for the goods and services listed in their registration.Ī copyright, on the other hand, would only give the owner the exclusive legal right to reproduce, publish, sell, or distribute the logo as an original creative work. Protection of brand/source identifiers falls under trademark law, and if you are doing business across state lines, federal protection occurs through registration. Copyright only protects your logo as an artistic expression it does not protect your logo as a brand/source identifier. Well, technically yes you can, but copyright is not the ideal protection for your brand/source identifiers. After perfecting these concepts, a business will want to protect their name and logo so that somebody else doesn’t mimic them, and they ask me, can I copyright my logo? That includes coming up with a name to communicate the value of their product or service to customers, as well as a logo to visually connect with their customers. Businesses work very hard on establishing their brand identity.