Re: copyrights

On 5/15/97, Emil Pellicer <epellicer[_at_]colby-monet.com> wrote:
>
> Paul Heald <heald[_at_]jd.lawsch.uga.edu> wrote:
> >
> > Since one cannot copyright a product name, I'll assume you mean
> > "trademark" symbol instead. You are under no legal obligation to
> > place the registration symbol next to a product name. I think the
> > recent practice of including such symbols in advertising is
> > aestetically very unappealing and probably annoys consumers to the
> > deteriment of the producer.
>
> This is not a trademarks list so I'll keep my comments short. Using
> these symbols may creat an unaestetic effect but their use is necessary.
> Placing either the "R" symbol or the "TM" symbol next to a trademark
> every time it is used is one way of ensuring that the mark will not
> become generic. In addition, using these symbols next to a mark
> consistutes some proof at least that the word was used as a trademark;
> how a word (or other mark) is used is an important factor in determining
> whether it can be protected as a trademark. So expect this practice to
> continue in spite of the fact that it can be quite annoying.
>

Actually, both are right, though you are talking about two different things.

Trademark owners need to use these symbols to help maintain their trademarks. They also need to *ask* others to use them only as trademarks, and not in the generic sense.

The rest of the world is under absolutely no legal obligation to use trademark symbols attached to other people's products, so long as they are using a company's trademark to accurately refer to that company's products.

Mark Lemley
Assistant Professor, University of Texas School of Law Of Counsel, Fish & Richardson, P.C.
mlemley[_at_]mail.law.utexas.edu

For information on the Intellectual Property program at UT, see http://www.utexas.edu/law/intelprop/ Received on Mon May 19 1997 - 15:18:52 GMT