You’ve been running your creative business for a while and finally settled on a logo you love. Maybe you’ve started to build a little brand recognition with your customers. Maybe you’ve gotten some press. Maybe your customers have remarked how much they love it.
And maybe, you now have another business whose logo is a little close for comfort.
So how do you protect your logo? Can you stop other businesses from adopting a similar logo? That’s what we are covering here.
I’ll break down the difference between copyright and trademark protection for your logo. And how each might help you protect (and stop) that copycat brand.
What is copyright? What is trademark?
Before we dive in, let’s break down what copyright and trademark are, what they protect, and why these laws exist.
What is copyright?
At its most basic, copyright is designed to incentivize creators to create. Because it allows creators to be the only ones who can monetize their creations for a specific time.
Here in the United States, copyright is written into our Constitution. The founding fathers believed in the creator economy (long before it existed in today’s form). And valued creator’s rights enough that they spelled copyright out in the Constitution.
Now, the time period where you were allowed to be the exclusive one to monetize your creators was much shorter at the beginning of our nation. The first copyright term was for seven years, with an option to renew it for another seven years. This 14-year term is drastically shorter than our current term of your lifetime plus 70 years.
So the public policy behind copyright law is to incentivize creators.
What is trademark?
Trademark law at its most basic is very different. I like to explain trademark law as a consumer protection statute. It exists to protect consumers from being confused.
So while brand owners can use it to protect their brand, it’s designed to protect consumers. And to give consumers the confidence to know what business is providing them with a product or service.
What does copyright protect? What does trademark protect?
Because the public policies behind these laws are very different, what they’re protecting, is also very different.
What does copyright protect?
Copyright protects the creator’s exact output. It protects the exact illustration, drawing, writing, painting, or song that the artist created.
Because of the why behind copyright law, certain things aren’t protected, including short phrases. This means your business name (or your business name in your logo) cannot be protected by copyright.
Copyright also doesn’t protect fonts or hand-lettering. So if your logo is primarily text-based, it wouldn’t have copyright protection.
The final reason many logos don’t have copyright protection is that they are mostly text with a simple graphical element. And this doesn’t rise to the level of copyright protection.
This means copyright will not protect your logo if you have a word-only logo or a logo with only a simple graphical element.
However, this doesn’t mean that all logos don’t have copyright protection. For example, the Starbucks siren logo would rise to the level of copyright protection. So if your logo is more like the Starbucks logo, it’ll likely have copyright protection.
What does trademark protect?
Trademark law gives brand owners a monopoly on a word, phrase, logo, or color because then consumers can use that to identify the business responsible for the product or service.
Because the why behind trademark law is consumer confusion, words or phrases that merely describe the product or service you are offering cannot be protected.
Additionally, what falls into this “descriptive” category is also personal names. The reason personal names fall into the “descriptive” category is because we believe that people should have the right to do business under their legal name. Of course, once your brand becomes a household name, then you can get a trademark for your personal name. But for most creative businesses, their brands have not risen to that level. And until your brand becomes a household name, it won’t be eligible for a trademark.
The second limitation of trademark protection is that your monopoly doesn’t extend to all products and services. It only stops other brands in your same space from using a confusingly similar word, phrase, or logo.
Delta is my go-to example here. Delta is a water faucet company, an airline, and an insurance company.
Each of these companies can use Delta as their primary identifier because consumers aren’t going to be confused that the airline is also selling dental insurance.
And if I started a bike company called Delta, none of these brands would be able to stop me.
However, if I started a luggage company named Delta, I should expect a letter from Delta Airlines attorneys, because consumers might assume that my luggage company is somehow associated with the airline.
So if the words in your logo don’t merely describe your products and services and do not contain your personal name, then your logo likely qualifies for trademark protection.
Key Takeaways
Let’s wrap this up, shall we? The key takeaways here are:
- Your logo likely has copyright protection if it contains detailed graphics. For example, it’s similar to the Starbucks siren logo.
- Your logo likely has trademark protection if your logo doesn’t merely describe your products or services and doesn’t contain your personal name.
What this boils down to is that most business logos have the strongest protections from trademark laws.
However…trademark laws are old-school playground rules, so if you’ve never done some research to find out what other businesses are using similar names or logos, then you’ll want to check out this blog post where I break down how to do a trademark search.
Ready to register the copyright in your logo? Then check out the Registering your copyrights course.
Ready to register the trademark in your logo? Then read this blog post that explains when it’s time to register and if you should DIY it.
Hi! I’m Kiff! I’m your friendly legal eagle (and licensed attorney).
My goal is to add ease to the legalese. And because I think basic legal resources should be available to every creative, I create a lot of free content.
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