Copyright and Trademark
- Erin Huebner
- Feb 23, 2022
- 2 min read
In our last Leadership and the Law class, we discussed copyright and trademark law.
The first thing we discussed is the 4 types of branding that can be trademarked. These include:
Trade name
Trademark (the design, logo, etc.)
Service Mark (if they’re selling a service rather than a product)
Trade Dress (the packaging, building, etc)
The next was the spectrum of trademark protection.
The spectrum of Trademark Protection (strongest to weakest)
Fanciful: made up/not real
Arbitrary: no connection
Suggestive: mental association
Descriptive: literal
Generic: not trademarkable
In these discussions, one brand that we discussed was Apple Inc. When Apple Inc. was founded, Apple Music studios sued them for trademark infringement. It was this lawsuit that made us broach the topic of arguments that can be made to claim that the new company or product is not infringing on the trademark. These arguments include:
Defenses:
Not copyrightable
Not in use- “abandonment” (rule of thumb: 10 years bc you have to renew trademark every 10 years) (In use/out of use)
Consent
Contract (this is what Apple computer did)
Distinguish
By type
By geography
Apple Inc. settled with Apple music and the rule was that they could never go into the music business. Clearly, they broke this part of the contract with iTunes and later Apple Music. Again another contract was made for a significant financial settlement.
In starting to write this blog post, I thought it would be interesting to find a current news story about copyright or trademark infringement. I found an article discussing how Apple Inc. just won a copyright lawsuit over a racially diverse emoji.
Seeing that Apple was again involved in a copyright/trademark lawsuit, makes me wonder if Apple even cares if they are infringing on any. They are such a large and powerful company, realistically they just have the manpower and funds to fight lawsuits and pay settlements. I had always thought that companies would be really careful not to infringe on other copyrights or trademarks but Apple Inc. makes me think that this is not the case. Do you think that they are so powerful it doesn't matter? Is it really a good idea to just do as you please and payout later?
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