Pictured: The logo of Apple Corps Ltd. (left), and the logo of Apple, Inc. (right).
Poor Steve Jobs. The ardent Beatles fan must have been a little tormented by his company’s decades-long trademark battle with Apple Corps, the rock band’s holding company.
The dispute and its many particulars were finally settled as late as 2007, with Apple Inc. taking away all ownership rights and then licensing some of them back to Apple Corps.
No one wants to be the subject of a lawsuit, and having your branding and marketing concepts stolen by a competitor is also undesirable. How do you protect yourself from copyright infringement?
First of all, you need to understand what a copyright is. It’s a legal concept that gives a person or an entity exclusive rights to the usage of “literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, and other certain intellectual works” in the public domain.
What Intellectual Works Can Be Owned?
So, as a company, what can you own? In terms of marketing and branding, common intellectual works are the company name, logos, and trade dress (the visual appearance of a product or of packaging). Shape, color schemes, and graphic design are commonly identified as parts of trade dress. In short: imagery.
It’s also another legal concept, and it has two qualifiers: 1. its function must be identifying a brand, and 2. it is distinct. (Of course, “distinction” is very subjective, and may be a cause for some of these lawsuits!) Some trade dress examples are: the shape of a Coca-Cola bottle, Wonder Bread packaging, the freckled girl next to Wendy’s fast food logos, and those MacDonald’s arches.
Why Do We Have All These Copyright Laws?
In case you’re not sick of legal concepts just yet, here’s another: dilution. Dilution is the weakening of a an intellectual work’s identification power, due too many similarities within the same marketplace. Imagine how Kodak’s uniqueness would diminish if most other cameras had that same bright yellow packaging. Or what if all breakfast joints had high, A-framed, blue-roofed buildings, like iHop?
Let’s face it. Some businesses are not in it for the long haul, and they’re content to rip off a more established company for a quick buck. Copyright law offers you the opportunity to preserve your distinctiveness in the marketplace.
How Do I Go About Protecting Myself?
The process you use to protect your intellectual work is the same you use to avoid lawsuits from other companies!
1. Conduct clearance searches.
Before you use your branding in the public domain, make sure that they haven’t been used by someone else who has trademarked them. An intellectual property lawyer can do this for you, although it will cost you more.
2. Decide whether it’s appropriate to pursue trademark registration.
It’s a pain, it’s lengthy, and sometimes it’s expensive. Unfortunately, there is only way to legally protect your intellectual property, and it’s through the government.
3. Use the ™ or ® symbol.
Trademark registration allows you to use the ™ or ® symbol for your company’s creations. And what’s so great about that? A trademark is a phrase or symbol that acts like a brand. The ™ symbol is intended to distinguish one company’s intellectual property from another. Under certain geographical locations, you can proceed in court against another company if you rightfully use this symbol.
With the ® symbol, however, your intellectual property is registered with the United States Patent and Trademark Office. At this point, you have trademark rights at the federal level.
When Can I “Borrow” Images and Words from Other Companies?
Under certain and limited circumstances, it’s permitted to use trademarked intellectual property. Some of these circumstances are:
- News reporting
- Comparative advertising
- Obvious parody
These conditions fall under the Fair Use stipulation of U.S. copyright law. Within these situations, it’s obvious who is the source of the intellectual property, it’s clear what is being endorsed, and there’s no confusion for consumers (so dilution doesn’t apply).
If Fair Use didn’t exist, we wouldn’t have lovely websites like iSpoof as diversions.
