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Written by : Blair Usie |
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I'm very much happy to share with you some thoughts about the tensions between trademark and copyrights in the context of logos if we take the life cycle of a logo in practice and based on partly features example if you take the oil company well-known shell they had let's suppose only a war trademark and wishes to have an emblematic logo as well they contact a design agency to draw the sketches and within the agency one employee together with a consultant drove the first logo in in 1919 hundred and regularly as both of large multinationals they decided to revisit logo and to contact often new designers our new design agencies and there is the evolution of the logo of shell among the years all registered its trademarks and we'll see whether these logos are duly filed a trademark are nevertheless at risk so as we as we all know and I used the old Neumann rotation that that we changed as from the first of October for the for the sake of facility we all know that logos are protectable under the trademark so I won't go into the details in this respect and prima facie the filing of logo is quite streamlined and presents a lot of advantage if it's file its trademark first of all we have within the EU IPO availability search and there is a very useful database which enable any designer or company to make a search whether this logo already is registered and to the example of Instagram so if you combine that with the possibility of a position proceedings and the prima facie ex-ante control of the EU IPO based on the absolute grounds for refusal the risk of coexisting identical or pro matically similar logo protected by trademark is relatively low well we all know the caveat of the well-known Sibel case law but nevertheless prima facie there is a legal certainty once published you have a title which is very useful for example at fairs that you can enforce again infringers there is no time limitation and there is in principle no limited assignment issue since the trademark belongs to the person or entity who registered it but there are a lot of well flipped sides with respect to trademark filing it's a limited scope of protection because you only with respect to the exception of well-known mark can only challenge and dispute identical or similar product in similar classes there is a risk of delusion so you need to monitor the sign which is costly we spoke about the use of the trademark within the five years and the problematic of evergreening with respect to defensive trademarks and it should be within the course of trade with the notable exception of the Benelux convention where you can enforce trademarks even if it's not used in the court of trade registration is need no thematic protection and it's a territorial limitation country or region therefore the cross protection combined trademark and copyright is useful and very often not take into account by IP lawyers as if we go back to the logos of shell they are both protected by trademark but potentially as well by copyrights and pursuant to the EU CGA you case law any any kind of work of art which is a concrete form and which bear the stamps of its autre is a copyright protected material and there are the lot of advantage that you do not have within the trademark which is no need for registration the protection is ensure progressively throughout the creative process and not as from the registration there is no cost the protection is quasi universal through the Berne Convention 174 countries has ratified the Berne Convention and it protects all goods and services so no classes there is no pre cause of trade prerequisites contrary to trademarks and although trademarks are unlimited protected provided you pay the fees every 10 years and duration of protection with respect to copyright in 70 years after the deaths of the last outers so if you have a collaboration it's the last one that will count but there again there are converts especially with moral rights in most of the country it's the same duration of but for in France for example moral rights will survive ever and and so there is there is no statute of limitation with respect to moral rights in France but there is no database for availability search so you do not know whether someone else has designed a similar logo or artwork besides checking on Google but it's limited reliability on that and since there is a universal protection you're supposed to make a worldwide check everybody could at some stage and we will analyze an interesting case study with respect to logo of the International Olympic Committee a bit later but the thing is that contrary to trademark where you have ex-ante control by the EU PU and the national IP offices you do not have that we've copyright it's post ex posts check so you're not sure that your your logo will be considered to be copyright protected oh and the threshold for copyright protection is not harmonized within D U as we know in the Benelux countries the threshold is extremely low a bit higher in France but still always quite low but in Germany and Spain only iconic elements copyright protected especially with industrial design there are also with respect to the assignment of copyrights numerous differences for example in the example I gave at the beginning of my talks that the first logo of shell was conceived by one employee and one consultant in Belgium and France there is a presumption there is there is no presumption of assignment of the copyright to the employer unless it is with respect to copyright truly computer software directive but for normal copyright protected material there is no presumption of assignment in in most of the other countries and specifically Netherlands UK Ireland and Germany there is a presumption so again you have them to check what was specified in the employees contract of the designer that conceived the first shell and the next shell logos which means that possibly shell is not holding the copyrights on its own logo which could be then challenged we will see that if there are revisited because of a breach of moral rights so these things are are quite key and another disadvantage with respect to moral rights it's the way they can be transferred from the employer or the to the employer or to the client in UK and Ireland they cannot be transfer but they can be waived in Belgium they can be waived but it is not a general waiver that's possible and in France they cannot be waived which is a real issue because if we take the shell example here if if you start from from the last the last line it's obvious that all the five last designs are a revisiting of the previous one which is basically a breach of the moral right of integrity and if shell has concluded a contract with an agency as we know the moral rights remains within the natural physical person and not since they are not transferable which means that in the contract between the agency and shell the moral white could not be addressed unless you have kind of procurement terms or proxy order with the licensing of the defending and the exercise of the moral rights but this means that and on top of that the paternity rights wh
Thanks for your comment Clara Frantum, have a nice day.
- Blair Usie, Staff Member
hi i'm stan muller this is crash course intellectual property and today we're talking about trademarks trademarks are everywhere and they can often be confusing so today we're going to talk about why just about everything seems to be trademarked and why trademarks are good for business mr mueller trademarks don't intersect with my life so i really don't see why we need to cover this one it's mueller and two just watch the video a trademark is any word name symbol or device used to identify and distinguish goods from those manufactured or sold by others and to indicate the source of the goods even if that source is unknown this bit about unknown sources means that you as a consumer don't usually know the person or factory that actually made the goods you buy before the industrial revolution you often knew exactly who was making your stuff and how it was made if you wanted a hammer you went to the blacksmith and you knew his name it was probably smith these days brand names assure you that you're buying the same product say toilet paper that you bought last time you went shopping you know like the stuff with the ripples seriously though getting the wrong medication because of brand name confusion or counterfeiting could be disastrous the rationale for granting legal protection for trademarks is that they're a type of property it demonstrates to the purchasing public a standard of quality and embodies the goodwill and advertising investment of its owner in other words companies expend a tremendous amount of resources to develop the product market it to customers and provide customer support and back up their product with warranties at its core trademark law functions as a consumer protection measure it prevents consumer confusion and makes it easier for consumers to select and purchase the goods and services they want for example if you go shopping for a new television you don't have to sift through dozens of products that are confusingly similar to samsung knockoffs like samsung or wamsung or sony you want the samsung maybe based on past experience or the company's reputation or even a funny ad because the law protects the manufacturer's use of the trademark you can be reasonably sure that the tv you're picking up at best buy is the tv you saw the verge reporters freaking out about at ces though trademarks are often classified as intellectual property the supreme court held in the 1879 trademark cases that congress has no power to protect or regulate trademarks under the intellectual property clause of the constitution which as you'll recall provides congress with the authority to regulate and protect copyrights and patents but this didn't stop congress from regulating trademarks they used the commerce clause of the constitution which gives them the power to regulate commerce with foreign nations and among the several states and with the indian tribes beyond trademarks there are also service marks which are very similar in that they distinguish one particular service an example of a service mark is that roaring lion at the beginning of mgm movies it's registered for motion picture production or something trade dress or product packaging is protected if it's distinctive and non-functional like the shape of a nutter butter cookie is protected trade dress what they ought to trademark is the smell some people have registered smells and we'll get to that in a minute trademarks are symbols and since human beings might use as a symbol or device almost anything that is capable of carrying meaning just about any conceivable thing can function as a trademark trademarks can be words like craft or lego logos designs like the nike swoosh aromas like there's a brand of oil for race cars that smells like cherries sounds like bong bong bong or bada or bada papa even though is a registered trademark you can register colors like ups brown or home depot orange or tiffany blue or john deere green personal names like taylor swift t swizzy's name is registered for 61 different goods and services from shoes to christmas tree ornaments even containers like the coca-cola bottle or this perfume bottle shaped like a human skull can be registered in short they can be almost anything that distinguishes the product from others and which signifies the source of the goods despite the breadth of potential trademark subject matter there are some limits on what can be a valid trademark recently a restaurant in texas asserted trademark rights in the flavor of its pizza one of the restaurant's former employees allegedly stole the recipe and opened up a competing pizza joint selling pizzas that tasted a lot like those made by his former employer the judge rejected the claim and dismissed the case finding that it is unlikely that flavors can ever be inherently distinctive because they do not automatically suggest a product source also functional product features are not protectable under trademark law pizza has only one function that's to taste delicious so there are three requirements for trademarks we just discussed the first one that a trademark has to be a symbol or device that a court or the patent and trademark office deems to qualify the second requirement is that the mark has to be used in interstate commerce and the third is that it has to identify the mark owner's goods and distinguish them from those manufactured or sold by others it has to be distinctive let's talk about trademarks and what makes them distinctive in the thought window quartz rank trademark distinctiveness along a spectrum ranging from unprotectable to highly protectable at the bottom end of the spectrum is generic generic names refer to stuff like using the word orange for the fruit or dog for the canine or cheese for cheese descriptive terms simply describe the goods and convey an immediate idea of what the product is such as break and bake for scored cookie dough suggestive marks require some imagination or perception to link them to the goods like chic for middle eastern food or fruit loops for a circular fruit flavored breakfast cereal arbitrary marks are common words used in unexpected ways apple for computers or amazon for book sales or shelf for gasoline the most distinctive marks are usually made up words fanciful marks are non-dictionary words such as google for an internet search engine or clorox for bleach or kodak for film fanciful arbitrary and suggestive marks receive automatic protection upon use because they're considered to be inherently distinctive so the owner of the break and bake mark has to show that consumers identify the product with nabisco or pillsbury or whoever makes the product i honestly don't know who makes it which isn't a good sign as to whether it's acquired secondary meaning generic terms are never entitled to protection this becomes important when trademarks are gradually assimilated into the language as common names through a process sometimes called generocide the public comes to view such names as referring to the products themselves rather than as distinguishing the source of the products as a result the name loses its protection words like escalators cel
Thanks kayzaroog your participation is very much appreciated
- Blair Usie
About the author
I've studied tectonics at Lawrence Technological University in Southfield and I am an expert in mathematical statistics. I usually feel sick. My previous job was air crew member I held this position for 17 years, I love talking about metal detecting and volleyball. Huge fan of Sam Smith I practice soccer and collect rocks.
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