Can a trademark infringe a copyright [Expert Guide]

Last updated : Aug 10, 2022

Can you trademark and copyright the same thing?

Copyright protects original work, whereas a trademark protects items that distinguish or identify a particular business from another. Copyright is generated automatically upon the creation of original work, whereas a trademark is established through common use of a mark in the course of business.

Can you infringe a trademark?

Trademark infringement is the unauthorized use of a trademark or service mark on or in connection with goods and/or services in a manner that is likely to cause confusion, deception, or mistake about the source of the goods and/or services.

What is the difference between copyright infringement and trademark infringement?

The main difference is that a trademark protects the unique identification of a brand or product (e.g. the logo of a brand) and must be applied for, whereas copyright prevents copying, reproduction, or distribution of specific work (such as music, written words, performances, and films) and is gained automatically if ...

What are 3 things that determine trademark infringement?

Thus, "use," "in commerce," and "likelihood of confusion" are three distinct elements necessary to establish a trademark infringement claim.

Is Mickey Mouse copyrighted or trademarked?

Disney holds Mickey Mouse trademarks for a variety of commercial uses. And while copyright is time-limited, trademarks are not.

Can a logo be copyrighted and trademark?

To protect your logo, you need a trademark or service mark (trademarks are generally used for products, while service marks are usually applied to services). You should not copyright or patent a logo design.

Which is an example of a trademark infringement?

One common example of trademark infringement is where clothing manufacturers attach brand labels to generic items, attempting to have them “pass off” as authentic. Trademark infringement violations are very serious and are often involve aspects of deceptive trade practices.

What does it mean when a trademark has been infringed?

What is trademark infringement? Trademark infringement is the unauthorized use in commerce of a registered trademark or a copy or colorable imitation thereof, which results in the likelihood of confusion among the consuming public.

What if someone is using my trademark?

If the person or entity receives your letter and continues to use your trademark, it's time to file a lawsuit. The suit will get filed in federal court if it spans more than one state. If the infringement is local, it may get filed in a state court.

Is it better to copyright or trademark a name?

A trademark can protect your name and logo in case someone else wants to use them for their own purposes. Also, you cannot really copyright a name, since copyright protects artistic works. This is exactly why you need to have a trademark that protects your company's intellectual property, such as your logo.

Can you use words that are trademarked?

The short answer is that you can use a trademark belonging to another person or company if you use the mark for: informational or editorial purposes to identify specific products and services, or. if your use is part of an accurate comparative product statement.

Which of the following is not protected by trademark laws?

Generic terms are not protected by trademark because they refer to a general class of products rather than indicating a unique source.

What makes a trademark invalid?

Trademark Invalidation If the registration is less than five years old, the party challenging the trademark rights can rely on any ground that could have prevented registration initially. The likelihood of confusion and descriptiveness is the most common grounds asserted to invalidate trademark rights.

What are the 4 types of trademarks?

• Generic. A generic term is a common description that does not receive trademark protection.
• Descriptive.
• Suggestive.
• Arbitrary or Fanciful.

What is the most common remedy for trademark infringement?

The most common remedy for trademark infringement is injunctive relief. Injunctions are court orders commanding that the infringer immediately cease its unlawful activities.

Is Winnie-the-Pooh out of copyright?

The Unprotected Pooh Reynolds and McGarry have avoided legal challenges with their uses so far. To give some background, Milne's 1926 book is in the public domain, but changes to Winnie-the-Pooh, the character, from the original 1926 book are still under copyright protection.

Is Donald Duck in the public domain?

And if you were wondering, Mickey's leading lady, Minnie, debuted at the same time as Mickey. So she's up for public domain in 2024 too. Pluto, Goofy, and Donald Duck will be up for public domain soon after Mickey and Minnie. Mickey is certainly an outlier when it comes to copyright and ownership.

Can I draw Disney characters and sell them?

You cannot legally make and sell any product with Disney lyrics, quotes, or characters on it without permission from The Walt Disney World Company.

How long does a trademark last?

A federal trademark lasts 10 years from the date of registration, with 10-year renewal terms. Between the fifth and sixth year after the registration date, the registrant must file an affidavit to state that the mark is still in use.

Is a slogan a trademark or copyright?

Generally, taglines and “traditional” trademarks are governed by the same rules. Accordingly, so long as a tagline or slogan is either inherently distinctive or has developed secondary meaning, a tagline is protectable as a trademark.

Check these related keywords for more interesting articles :
How to patent food recipe
How to make a website patent
Which brands does louis vuitton own
How to check audio copyright
Intellectual property management journal
How to get patent on product
How to type registered trademark in powerpoint
Register trademark domain
Intellectual property jobs belgium
Intellectual property license agreement template
Can i use copyrighted music on my website
What are the five steps in registering a trademark
Trademark registration section 8
Clause bank intellectual property
Can you trademark a name and logo together

Write a comment

hi this is anne with graphic design how to and today i'm going to talk about copyright infringement and trademark infringement when you're selling designs online specifically on etsy some of you might know that i've been a graphic designer for quite a while and i also have an etsy shop these things that i'm going to tell you are things that i do personally to avoid copyright and trademark infringement in my etsy shop now i am not a lawyer so take these with a grain of salt but these are just the things that i do number one i make my own designs when i'm making a new design i don't even look at someone else's design so in this case i probably wouldn't have come up with this idea if your design resembles someone else's too closely they can file an infringement claim so although we as graphic designers get a lot of inspiration from the internet i personally steer clear of actually taking a design that i found and making something similar number two i don't use company names or logos in my designs so this means no disney no mickey mouse nothing that resembles mickey mouse ears no nfl teams no boy scouts etc now i know some of you are going to say well there are tons of disney designs on etsy so isn't that okay but here's the thing all of these shops are risky and getting shut down and they probably will get shut down eventually number three i don't make products or designs with images that i found on google these are someone else's images and probably 99 of them are copyrighted so it just makes sense to make my own designs number four i don't use company names or logo names in my descriptions or keywords i don't put them in the title area description or the tags section number five i checked the patent and trademark office website and i use the trademark electronic search system which is better known as tess so to do that i just click on basic word mark search and i type in the phrase that i'm wanting to use in my design so when i type in hello here are all the word marks that have been trademarked so let's say i wanted to use hello sugar i'll click on this and then i'll check the goods and services hello sugar is trademarked for body waxing services now you'll want to go ahead and actually search hello sugar by itself so let's do that here are all the trademarked versions of hello sugar and these will be on different products some might be jewelry some might be shirts some of these are dead which means you could use them if you looked at what they're used for here but some are live let's look at this live one this trademark is for seeds for agricultural purposes so we'd probably be okay if your phrase is trademarked for clothing or t-shirts you can't use it in your designs i'll put a link in my description for this website there are a few surprising things that you can't use in your listings some of those are onesie or onesies gerber has a trademark for that some other ones are girl power hello sunshine who's your daddy born to be wild american girl america the beautiful live laugh love and if some of these seem random to you well they are random and that's why it's good to search you never know if something is already trademarked number six i don't use fabric with trademarks to create something that i'm going to sell on etsy so for example if you buy this chiefs fabric and then you make a mask like this you cannot sell that unless you have a license with the chiefs and believe me they're not cheap this probably seems a little crazy most fabrics that have licensed images on them like these and disney images cannot be used for commercial purposes so you can make a mask and wear it for yourself but you can't sell it along the same lines it's not okay to use used recognizable brand items to make something else and then try to sell that so let's say you had a bunch of pepsi cans and you cut them up and you use them to make a mirror frame or something like that that is fine to do if it's for your own personal use but you cannot sell that now you might be wondering why some big companies use other companies logos and images and it's no big deal so a good example of this is a chips bag that has kansas city chiefs brandy on it or something similar the thing that happens in these cases are that tostitos is paying the other company the chiefs a lot of money to use their images so if you're wanting to actually do this you can reach out to the kansas city chiefs or whoever to see how much a license would cost but just now is probably not going to be very reasonable i've heard that the licensing for disney is like 100 000 or something plus there are other requirements like they're very picky about the quality of the items you're selling because it's their brand so those are a few of the things that i do to avoid infringing on copyrights and trademarks and i hope this video has helped you all right if you have any questions or comments feel free to leave those in the comments section below and i'll see you next week with another graphic design tutorial thank you

Thanks for your comment Beau Gath, have a nice day.
- Fabian Basore, Staff Member

he folks today we're going to be discussing the differences between copyright and Trademark just a quick disclaimer to say that I am NOT an IP professional if you do require intellectual property advice please do seek out professional help so what is copyright copyright is there to protect your original creative works you can't copyright an idea you can copyright things like literary work dramatic works Musical and artistic work as long as they are in a tangible form what do I mean by a tangible form well things like books film recordings websites software photography paintings or graphic design elements like business cards or brochures having the copyright then gives you the exclusive rights to perform distribute make copies of or even make adaptations of your original creative work here in the UK there is no requirement to register your copyright it just happens automatically as soon as the work is created this may be different in your location so please check with your local Copyright Office or intellectual property office to get the full facts on how copyright is assigned in your country protection on copyright generally lasts for the lifetime of the author Plus 70 years again this may be different in your country so please check once you have created your work and the copyright is assigned you then have permission to use that little copyright symbol the little C inside the circle along with the year that the work was created however there is no requirement to use that little C symbol the copyright still remains with you at all times so let's move on to registered marks there are two types of registered marks and both of these can be used to protect the sale of products or services for a business the first is the trademark which is used to protect goods or products and the second is a service mark which you would use to protect services that you provide generally though people tend to use the town trademark to cover both our trademark and the service mark for the purpose of this video I will be using the term registered mark which covers both examples of things that can be covered by a registered mark would be a company name a slogan a sound a color under logo once you have that registered mark you have the exclusive rights to use that mark with your product or service it allows you to stop other companies businesses or organizations from using a similar mark to promote or sell a similar product or service what you can't do is you can't prevent someone from using a similar mark if they are using it to promote or sell a dissimilar product or service let's look at this example of two locals one for Sun Microsystems and the other for Columbia Sportswear now visually these two logos are very similar especially if they were both in black for example and you just had a quick glance at the logos the reason that both of these similar logos can exist and be registered as marks is that there are two completely different industries Sun Microsystems is in software and computing and Columbia is in sportswear two very different industries now however let's say Sun Microsystems were in the spa for businesses while then we would have an issue because they would both have similar marks selling or trading similar products this can't happen so what would happen here is that the company that registered their mark first would be able to prevent the second company from registering the mark which is similar to theirs and in a similar industry in its simplest form registered marks are there to help the consumer differentiate between brands and the products and services that they sell if when you try to register a new mark the internal Property Office will look at existing marks and if they feel that by registering your mark this may cause confusion for the consumer when they are looking to buy a product or service from someone who is in the same industry as you they will deny you that registration once you have registered your mark though you can use the little R symbol inside the circle next to your logo or your brand name unlike copyright registered marks can last indefinitely but they do have to be renewed every 10 years one thing that you cannot do is you cannot register a mark and sit it on a shelf for use at a later date for a registered mark to be viable it must be in constant use so those are the main differences between copyright under registered mark or as I mentioned earlier most people just use the town trademark I hope this cleared up any confusion you may have had in the past about the two terms and you can move forward safe in the knowledge that you have the correct understanding for both for more brand and design advice why not join hundreds of other brand rockers who have signed up to my rock your brand monthly email newsletter it's absolutely free and the advice that I give in there will help you to strengthen your brand and stand out from your competition head on over to rock your brand or quote at UK and sign up until I see you next time folks stay creative [Applause]

Thanks yanpinggg9 your participation is very much appreciated
- Fabian Basore

About the author

Fabian Basore

I've studied ethnoarchaeology at Hiram College in Hiram and I am an expert in herpetology. I usually feel numb. My previous job was technical & scientific publications editor I held this position for 20 years, I love talking about city trip and boxing. Huge fan of Mike Patton I practice rugby union and collect hockey cards.