Protecting Your Brand Logo

Logos play a pivotal role in Company Identification, Businesses, and Organizations’ activities. Nevertheless, it helps in establishing their brand identity and consumer loyalty. It is recognized as the companies’ value, product, good, and service. Logo is termed as an essential asset in the business world. Logos are termed artistic works or creations. They fall under the purview of copyright law. To qualify as an “artistic work or creation” the logo of the brand should demonstrate a certain level of creativity, innovation, authenticity, and originality. This entails that a logo should be the direct result of human efforts. Besides, it must possess the element of uniqueness. A brand logo is considered to be a way to distinguish a product, good, or service from others.

Logo design can be a simple design or a complex graphic design or work. In case, if a brand logo meets the criteria, it can easily be protected according to the law. Logo is protected under the copyright law. There are different laws regarding copyrights in different parts of the world. Some copyright laws are stricter while others are much lenient or mild. Our Lawyers can provide more details and solutions.

• A logo may be protected by copyright or trademark. This is a big question. From the perspective of copyright, a logo is termed as the work of artistic creativity, a unique innovation that is automatically protected upon the creation.
• On the other hand, trademarks are also applicable to the logos. They are applied to prevent any chaos or confusion in the marketplace. Moreover, they will protect the product or service against passing off
• Copyrights will provide automatic international protection for goods or services. On the contrary, the trademarks can be registered on a national or regional basis. This offers an additional legal safeguard to the product or service.

The courts have demonstrated flexibility in interpreting the criteria for the protection of logo copyright. Even seemingly basic logos are also termed as artistic creations. Additionally, they deserve the protection of copyrights to remain secure from piracy. Faced a legal battle from a clothing firm for using a logo. The logo resembled the popular and quite famous brand named Louis Vuitton’s logo. The court ruled in favor of the clothing brand, Louis Vuitton. This is a case that emphasizes the significance of protecting the brand. It protects the brand identity and also prevents consumer confusion.

• Logo copyright infringement occurs when a significant component of a trademark is used without authorization. The component of the trademark may include the size, shape, color, mark, or design being used without proper approval or permission.

In case if a copyright logo is reproduced without the proper consent, it is marked as infringement. It constitutes an infringement, regardless of whether the reproduction is modified, altered, or slightly changed.

• The court will be assessing the qualitative significance of the copied elements. This will help in determining infringement. The entire focus is laid on the importance of distinguishing the original logo.
• There is a presence of some exceptions to Logo Copyright Infringement. The Copyright law provides specific exceptions. It is also known as fair use. This will allow the use of copyrighted materials without the author’s consent.

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