38
No, not at all.
It doesn't have nearly enough similarities to count as plagiarism. Yes, they both feature a tree. As do many, many logos. The style is different, the use of colors, the whole setup is different.
However, if the other company is widely known in your field and you are afraid your clients might confuse you with each other, you could consider ...
25
I am not a trademark attorney which is really who you should ask.
My understanding is the ™ is merely an indicator that the mark is being used in an effort to register it. ™ means "We intend to make this an ® when unique usage has been established." ™ does not provide any legal protection, it merely is a notice to infringers that the user may intend to file ...
11
It is an intensive process, takes a while, and is expensive. There are companies that do little else, and will charge you handsomely. The USPTO (Patents and Trademark office) has search facilities on its website that will allow you do search for yourself without a fee but considerable cost in time. I assume that similar facilities exist for other economic ...
9
Artwork is copyrighted when it is created. It doesn't matter if it is a concept or not, it is still copyrighted.
If someone were inclined to try and prove you used the Bactolab logo as a basis, they wouldn't have a lot of difficulty.
It definitely appears to be at best derivative work. Which can be an infringement on copyrights.
However, I'm a designer, ...
7
Looks like an infringement to me. Either conscious or not. They are far too similar with the rotation being the primary difference.
However, just because your idea matched a previous idea it doesn't automatically mean there was any malice in the creation.
To determine whether or not you can use it legally, you need an attorney specializing in copyright/...
7
There are three issues here:
The easy one. Do you have permission or a license from the artist? Or did they artist release their work under something like Creative Commons? If no, you're stealing their work, don't do it. If yes, move on to...
The medium difficulty question. Can a person's likeness be used like this? Leaving aside who it is for now, see this ...
6
The reproduction or publication of any company's intellectual property, which includes logos, should only be done with the permission of the company(s) involved. If a company owns a logo which is registered then it is against the law in some countries (including the UK) to reproduce it anywhere without seeking consent. If the logo is trademarked, then it is ...
6
If it's clearly Radcliff's likeness, then you'll probably run into a problem. It's to do with a persons privacy rights, and to prevent them looking like they endorse things that they don't.
If it is plainly in character as Potter, you'd have a problem there as well, probably with Rowling / her publisher / the movie studio / etc. kinda sounds like it's not a ...
6
Drawing on a point that Alan Gilbertson made, you need to ascertain whether you NEED to do this. A lot of people will pay the fees and do the search without consideration because they are afraid of legal consequences. The truth is, as Alan wrote, is there a confusion factor?
For example, (hypothetical) I design a logo for a Law firm. They are called Mullins ...
6
There is not nearly enough similarity between both logos. Also by definition you are not plagiarizing, since you are not trying to use someone else's work as if it yours. I don't think there is anything unlawful here.
5
You must follow a trademark owner's guidelines in cases where your publication or website is selling or advertising trademarked products. (See the Dell website, for example, or any of their brochures.) Your power tool brochure might have a "fine print" bit with the masthead and general copyright material, to the effect that the names of products mentioned in ...
5
Each company or organization has their own terms about this.
So you might want to read them for each logo before adding them on your website or marketing material.
For example, you cannot add a badge or a logo that could mislead your visitors in thinking you're part of some association when you're not. The permission to use that logo comes with the ...
5
I will preface this by saying that I am not a lawyer. I am pretty familiar with font legal/business issues from my decade-plus at Adobe working with their lead font lawyer, and 20 years in the type business in various roles dealing with IP.
But that said, these are legal issues, and consulting a lawyer is an excellent idea. One such lawyer who is well known ...
5
There is no legal threshold that you can go over to be "safe" as the law is interpreted by the judge. In this case I do not see any problems. The greens are different the style is different and even the trees are different. Not to mention the services are different.
4
I am not a lawyer. If you are seeking legal advice regarding trademarks, consult a trademark attorney.
The ™ symbol is used to notify others that you intend to register the mark, phrase, icon, whatever.
The ™ offers no legal protections whatsoever. It merely serves as notice to anyone who see the item that you will, at some point in the future, register ...
4
Is it plagiarism? No. Plagiarism is taking another one's work and trying to pass it off as your own. If you really did conceptualize, sketch, and design it from scratch, then you did not plagiarize.
However, those two logos are pretty similar, and I can't say you wouldn't get into hot water by releasing it. The fact that you didn't steal the design doesn't ...
4
You should look into asking a trademark lawyer, but for my personal opinion:
There is a different usage in color.
You are using a stroke to define the B.
Yours is slanted.
The gap is less in between the separation of the | and 3.
The curve of the 3 doesnt match and yours appears to be higher up.
You aren't using a pencil.
I would suggest maybe:
Adjusting ...
4
Use SVG images.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scalable_Vector_Graphics
Worth noting: SVG isn't supported in older versions of IE (8 and prior). I'm not sure how it renders in crappier email clients, either.
Maybe SVG with PNG fallback, because anything with a Retina display can probably show SVG.
Another option: Don't use an image in the email signature. ...
4
My proofreader always had us un-format any register marks, trademarks, service marks, etc. It had to be in the same font as the copy, and superscripted.
I think this was because italicized, bolded ™s and ®s were harder to read, and the superscript made them smaller still. So you want a balance of emphasis (visible, but not dominant) and you want to retain ...
4
There is a difference between "plagiarism" and "copyright infringement". Plagiarism means pretending that you created something when you didn't. If your graphics designer claims he created your logo, and in reality he paid some art student to create it, that would be plagiarism. Which would be legally totally fine. (Or you claiming that you created the logo ...
3
As far as I know, there is no hard rule governing the styling of the trademark symbol aside from having it be recognizable.
However your colleague is probably "correct" in that setting the trademark symbol in the same typeface and styling as the Trademark itself visually implies that the symbol is part of the mark. It now falls upon someone to decide if ...
3
Extremely similar trademarks are often approved by the USPTO provided they are used in different kinds of business. What is LiveBulb? If it's not very possible for someone to reasonably confuse one party with another, it's probably fine. I would think the presence of the pencil distinguishes the two logos sufficiently.
There are many extremely similar (and ...
3
This is only a partial answer. The rest of the question is addressed very well by Thomas Phinney’s answer
Otherwise, if I'm not careful, it sounds like anyone could just copyright my work as their own
Copyright does not work like this. If you created something and did not sign any contracts to transfer your copyright, you hold the copyright. If you have ...
3
There are a few different ways a logo could be used:
As a central part of the branding of your company. This is probably the way people usually think of logos. But certainly not the only one.
The default license does not cover this, nor can it really cover. Suppose somebody licenced the logo for some other use the logo and you after that succeed to buy a ...
3
All artwork is copyrighted to the artist or his/her employer the moment it's created. You don't technically need to do anything to have a copyright. Merely being able to prove the dates of your file creation can often be sufficient.
If you wish to register a copyright, you can via www.copyright.gov (at least in the United States.) Registration is not ...
3
Caveat: I'm not a lawyer, nor do I play one on TV.
As Google themselves have shown - by borrowing the same 4 colours used by Microsoft for the Windows logo - you can't copyright a colour combination.
I think the closest rule in your link is
Don't adopt marks, logos, slogans, or designs that are confusingly similar to our Brand Features.
So I think ...
2
There's no specific rule for this...including no rule that you actually have to display the registered trademark symbol. The only rule that would really apply is that the trademark actually needs to be registered to be able to honestly use the registered trademark symbol.
Now, your legal department may have come up with their own rules, in which case, that'...
2
If I were you, I would only alter the logo if this Children's division will have separate functions inside of it—If it's a new 'bucket'. OR if this logo will have more of a presence than typical business units for PR or signage etc.
Additionally you may want to alter the logo if it ever will appear next to the parent/main logo or as a collection of ...
2
Generally speaking, you can’t trademark numbers because they are not distinctive enough. There are exceptions, but they prove the rule because they are things like Boeing’s “747” where the number became so absurdly well known that you could say “seven-four-seven” to a random person in the street and they would know you were referring to the airplane, and ...
2
You always need permission from the original author of any published work. When you create a work (read: anything) that work is yours. If you use fan art of a work as part of a larger commercial work without permission expect to be in a courtroom soon.
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