| Trademark Law |
| Trademark SymbolsMore... |
| Slogans as Trademark Subject Matter |
| Slogans, which are catch phrases used mainly in advertising and promotion, qualify for legal protection and federal registration if they are used and function as trademarks. Nothing in the Lanham Act disqualifies them from protection, but they must signify the source of the goods or services and distinguish them from the goods or services of others to be eligible.More... |
| Cartoons and Comic Strips as Copyright Subject Matter |
| The copyright law of the United States provides for copyright protection of literary and artistic works. Copyright protection begins automatically when a work is first created in a fixed form. Cartoons and comic strips are among the types of works of authorship protected by copyright. This protection extends to any copyrightable pictorial or written expression contained in the work. This protection does not extend to the title or general theme for a cartoon or comic strip or to the general idea or name for the characters depicted. Copyright protection to creators and/or owners of graphic characters under the 1976 Copyright Act is strong but of limited duration. More... |
| State Copyright Law and Preemption |
| The law of copyright in the United States has become primarily federal since implementation of the Copyright Act of 1976. Thus, the rights conferred under copyright law are of a federal character and are vindicated in federal court. However, state law continues to fill in areas that are not explicitly governed by the federal Act. The areas that were not pre-empted by the passage of the Copyright Act are common law copyright and protection of pre-1972 sound recordings.More... |
| Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act |
| As part of the Intellectual Property and Communications Omnibus Reform Act of 1999, on November 17, 1999, Congress enacted the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (ACPA). It amends the Lanham Act by adding a new paragraph. The new section provides trademark owners with a civil remedy against cybersquatting, which is the registering of others' trademarks as domain names and profiting from the sale of those domain names or traffic through the site. The ACPA is a domain name dispute law that is intended to give trademark and service mark owners legal remedies against defendants who obtain domain names "in bad faith" that are identical or confusingly similar to a trademark or service mark. The bill does not provide blanket protection to the trademark owner or owner of a personal name protected as a mark, rather it provides a remedy against the "bad faith" appropriation of the mark. If a mark is a famous mark, the same remedies are available if the domain name is identical to, confusingly similar to, or dilutive of the mark. More... |
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