Can a smiley face be trademarked [New Info]

Last updated : Sept 20, 2022

Are smiley faces public domain?

The smiley face remains in the public domain in America, while anyone who uses it in a country where the Smiley Company owns the trademark would have to pay licensing fees.

Who owns the copyright to smiley?

SmileyWorld Ltd now owns the rights to the logo in over 80 countries and turns over $265 million (£204 million) every year. The engine room of SmileyWorld, London, Southwark, daytime. We do not know whether teens like Smiley or not, and so we are trying to figure it out.

Is the Walmart smiley face trademarked?

When asked about the case, Marquardt said simply, "We own the trademark for Smiley." Emmanuel Orenga, a lawyer for The Smiley Company, said they signed a settlement in 2011. "Terms are confidential but Walmart is authorized to use their logo for these new advertising campaigns," he said.

Is the meme face copyrighted?

Memes are protected by copyright law. This means that the creator of the meme has special rights in the meme. Although it may not seem like it – the reuse of a meme, whether by posting or sharing – violates copyright law.

Who patented the smiley face?

It's largely accepted that the original version of the familiar smiley face was first created 50 years ago in Worcester, Massachusetts by the late Harvey Ross Ball, an American graphic artist and ad man.

Is there a copyright on emojis?

Copyright considerations. Copyright may protect individual emojis, emoji sets and “house styles.” Individual emojis. Individual emojis, whether proprietary or platform-implemented Unicode-defined, are presumptively copyrightable as graphical images.

Is yellow smiley face copyright?

Smiley World owns rights attributed to a round yellow face, oval eyes and smile with the ticks on the ends. Images of this expression of a smiley face are not suitable for commercial or editorial use.

When was the smiley face patented?

The classic smiley dates back to 1963 in Worcester, Massachusetts, when graphic designer Harvey Ball was commissioned by State Mutual Life Assurance Company to create an image to boost staff morale.

How much is the smiley face worth?

Nearly 50 years ago, one man 'invented' the modern smiley face. Then, another man halfway across the world made it into a multimillion-dollar cash cow.

Does the Walmart smiley face have a name?

Wal-Mart has invested billions of dollars through the years, Simley said, linking its name to the yellow circle with two dots for eyes and a loopy grin. The company says it has officially been using what it calls "Mr. Smiley" since 1996 and in more limited ways long before that.

What brand is the yellow smiley face?

Today, The Smiley Company — which has trademarks on the term Smiley and the black-and-yellow version of the emoticon — has around 68 million licensed products that drive $573 million in annual sales across band partners.

Can you be sued for using a meme?

Turns out, you can. Hipskind & McAninch, LLC. Home | Blog | Can you sue over a meme? Turns out, you can.

How do you know if a meme is copyrighted?

Memes and You Your best bet is to start with an image or clip that is already labeled for reuse or is in the public domain, meaning out of copyright protection altogether. Google Images search tools provides such a filter, or try the Creative Commons search for work licensed for reuse via Creative Commons licenses.

Can you trademark a meme?

Once something like a meme goes viral and is widely used by people, it cannot legally function as a trademark, he said. It will typically take the office around four months to deliver a decision on the applications, Mr. Gerben said, but a pending application should not stop a company from beginning work.

What does this smiley mean 🙂?

A yellow face with simple, open eyes and a thin, closed smile. Conveys a wide range of positive, happy, and friendly sentiments. Its tone can also be patronizing, passive-aggressive, or ironic, as if saying This is fine when it's really not.

What does 😊 mean in texting?

Emoji Meaning A yellow face with smiling eyes and a broad, closed smile turning up to rosy cheeks. Often expresses genuine happiness and warm, positive feelings. An emoji form of the ^^ emoticon.

Who created the smiley brand?

Well ahead of the time, the Smiley Company co-founder Nicolas Loufrani created a new universal form of digital communication by adding a variety of facial expressions to the original Smiley. These emoticons inspired a visual-communication revolution and are now sent around the world daily, at an infinite pace.

Can I legally use an emoji as a logo?

You can create your own emojis to use on your products, but they must be substantially different from those that have already been copyrighted by another company or on another platform. If you want to use the crying, sad-face emoji, it might not be enough to make the color of the face orange instead of the yellow.

Can I use emojis in my product?

So the emoji that appear on your iPhone or Android keyboard are used under that set of legal arrangements. This is why emoji may look different on different devices. You can use those emoji to say or communicate whatever you want. What you can't necessarily do, however, is reproduce those emoji on a product.

Are emojis free license?

All Unicode emoji are in the public domain and therefore may be used for any purpose, including commercial use without the need to obtain any consent.

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what's happening guys so Nate back here and today's video we're gonna talk a little bit about trademark and copyright how to handle it if you get one and also how to avoid it before you actually get in trouble so how to know if something is risky and what kind of stuff you should avoid when you're making print-on-demand items so one of the most important things of your business when you're doing a print-on-demand business when you're selling custom designs on custom merch on your Shopify store is the designs you have to take the design process pretty serious if you do not want to get in trouble in the long run because there is going to be a time where you are going to sell something and you're going to think that's ok and the next thing you know you're gonna get a letter so someone's telling you cease and desist stop selling that I own the copyright on that graphic or that image or that vector or whatever you have in your design right that you paid a designer to make and you find out that he used something from somewhere that he wasn't supposed to and yeah this kind of stuff happens it's definitely happened to me before it so one of the things I wanted to tell you is obviously the the basic the most easy stuff you should avoid is anything clear branded stay away from sports teams stay with from cartoons TV movies famous people right stay away from all that and you're like what a second that's gonna make it way harder no it doesn't make it harder it's just you're gonna set yourself up to beat I have a longer-term business when you do it the correct way because one of the things you don't want to do is you don't want to base your print-on-demand business on trademark stuff on the TV and the movies and and that comes if you base your your business on that in the beginning it's gonna be exponentially harder to come out of doing that trademark stuff once if you ever decided to do it like yeah okay now my business is growing let's start focusing on non trademark stuff if you did it and then be like exponet you don't want to do that so how do you know what's trademark well obviously any the break the basic stuffs the easiest stuff right so do not do like what I just said movie TV all that kind of well if you know what I did with my print on the man store I have success with animals a lot of animals and then that doesn't mean you have to do animals right that's not the only niche there's so many many niches so many hobbies so many trends so many holidays so many things that are not TV and movie and whatever right but what I'm basically saying is you can start your business your foundation of your business in the correct areas and do correct designs and still have total success and you don't need to have you don't have to play in the in the trademark area if you play in the trademark area you're playing a fire and you're gonna get in trouble eventually someone's gonna come for you someone's gonna send you a letter someone's gonna sue you and you don't you just don't want to deal with that is not a good idea especially if you want to build a real business a real brand yeah don't do that still even if you want you have a short-term business still don't do it it's still too risky so what I want to show you now is one of the one of the things you can do just a double check so if you're not sure if something is trademark you think you're okay you hire a design if you buy a design from a designer and it looks super good and you're like I don't think that guy has that kind of skill he doesn't he done designs for me before but this design is like way too good what you want to do is you want to do what I like to call a reverse image lookup and this is gonna help you find if that design or that graphic or that vector is found somewhere else online and so what it'll do is hop on my computer I'll show you how to do that real quick so let me start my screen recording first thing you want to do here I'll just go to Google you want to go to Google okay I go to Google and then just go to images okay just type in images and they'll go to the image tab okay and now when you're in the image tab whatever you're searching for it right well I'll show you so I have for example let's say my designer gave me an image so I'm gonna click on this little box here see this little box image right here search by image so now I'm not searching my text and searching my image I click on search for an image and you could paste a URL but if you already have a design from your designer paste that design or upload the design from your designer into and if he makes it he fee formatted it for your wallet case over for another product and make sure he gives you the PSD and then you can upload just the main vector part or whatever parts in question don't try to upload the entire design it might give you something else right you want to you want to upload only the part that's in question the thing you're not sure if it's copyright or not and so for example I'm gonna upload this this I'll show you I have this what is this dolphin design I'm not even sure which one I downloaded actually okay so let's go over here it looks like this this is the one I downloaded right so this is just for an example purposes only and so I have this dolphin right here and it looks really nice it's a nice little vector graphic and I want to know does that trademark sure is that copywriting well basically if you can find it online then it's probably not safe to use okay unless you buy it from a stock photo site and you have rights to that so that's a different scenario but if you're just finding on Google it's normally not a safe option do not use images from Google Images it's going to be bad so or it could potentially bad even if they classify as commercially available and Google it's just they don't do the classifications right so well here let me show you this so this is the design that I had saved let's pretend my designer gave me you can see down here I have the exact same one two times here with with actually three times this one's flipped this is flipped but without color so if I go to visually similar images you can see here it is right here here it is right here not a flipped here it is over here so this is definitely somewhere you know someone owns this it looks like a coloring book thing or whatever images may be subject to copyright definitely so this is basically what I'm trying to say is you got to be very very careful with images you get from your designer and that kind of stuff just to be you know make sure that your it's not not stolen maze-like he didn't still have her somewhere he to borrow it from somewhere he's not supposed to do so what I want to show you now is this website called free pick free was it called free pick free pick right free picked free vectors and in arts now this website now if I search dolphin in here I want to show you this because this is important to note free pick has like all this cool stuff that you can use and here's what this is what I want to do it to to tell you okay so for example whatever let's just choose one I don't know it doesn't matter something that'

Thanks for your comment Carma Kahrs, have a nice day.
- Theodore Fruth, Staff Member

hey guys it's gu void and yes dream did successfully trademark the smiley face so the slightly tilted smiley face with these weird zoomed in eyes it's kind of creepy i feel like that's just gonna stare into your soul whatever it's on this website the trademark electronic search system t-e-s-s on the united states patent and trademark office it's a dot gov website kind of kind of a mouthful though so this official trademark search system i found this i believe i'm the first person to find this and i have some thoughts about it but first how the heck did i find this first i just looked up dream branding on the like tss because that is the name of his merch brand or at least the website url and so i assumed he had one for that and yes as you can see he does after this you can see that the attorney of record is matthew g mckinney i mean this guy he knows clay's face he's seen him in real life yeah i mean you could bribe him in the emails just slide into his dms being like you know clay my cousin i forgot his face can you send me a pic no but but seriously though i just found the trademarks that he filed recently and i saw that he filed the one of the smiley face and of the modernized dream character because you know there's the old dream character on like his channel banner and his profile picture and then there's like the new one he uses in this merch which is like a smooth boy so he trademarked the smooth boy but i personally think that the smiley face is a little bit more scary for something to be trademarked like and i'm just i'm just totally imagining dreams storming into a classroom full of like five-year-olds and they're just drawing smiley faces on the whiteboard and stream is just like you have to talk to my legal team get in contact with my legal team and all the kids are like oh my god dream i love your videos and he's like sue your asses but i i know i know that's not how this works and obviously it's this specific smile but still i do think that's humorous there is a few things i want to point out about this too one thing he says it's for goods and services hats shirts socks hoodies that's fine by me right but on his website he has drinkware he has like coins that have this face on it but for some reason he just forgot to or just thought it wasn't okay to put like trademark that on there maybe it's because they're made by like an external company or something i i have no idea but it just seems a little dumb not to protect them next uh he says entertainment services in the nature of live and online non-downloadable videos featuring player commentary and narration of video game playing performances playing performance no seriously though i get like obviously everything is sort of a performance but it is a little funny he's almost admitting to his videos being a little bit of a sketch and i think there's nothing wrong with that but it is a performance makes it seem like people act in performances right so dream is acting whatever it was filed on april 1st 2021 so this was it's been actually it's kind of it's coming up on a month this has been filed and i really haven't seen this covered anywhere if i'm just stealing this idea from some small youtuber and just completely like destroying them i'm really sorry please link it in the comments and we come back to our beautiful man to matthew he's also in florida so same as clay but whatever i think his description is really funny the mark consists of a stick figure smiley face i mean they don't really show that it was a stick figure right kind of irrelevant but whatever but talking about descriptions the description for the actual like whole dream pawn is much funnier the mark consists of a stick figure having a smiley face and body james but seriously though that's a kind of crappy description i'm assuming his lawyer made that because in what way is dream a stick figure he's very obviously a like pawn shaped thing and well that's basically it for this video maybe in a few days you'll see all the big boys like pegasus and all those people making videos on this but i was first haha

Thanks adekwatnyD your participation is very much appreciated
- Theodore Fruth

About the author

Theodore Fruth

I've studied christian theology at Georgia Gwinnett College in Lawrenceville and I am an expert in animal communication. I usually feel uncomfortable. My previous job was delivery driver I held this position for 4 years, I love talking about shooting sports and illustration. Huge fan of Gary Vaynerchuk I practice still rings and collect butterflies.