Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Popeye in the public domain (in Europe, that is)

According to the Times Online, copyright protection for Popeye the Sailor is going to expire at the end of 2008. Under EU rules, copyright protection lasts for 70 years after the death of the author. Popeye creator Elzie Segar died in 1938 at the age of 43, making Popeye the first iconic cartoon character to fall out of copyright.

This means that Segar's artwork can be reprinted in Europe without permissions. Here in the U.S., we have to wait until 2024 for Popeye's copyright to expire, which explains why I didn't use a picture for this post. It should also be noted that Popeye is registered as a trademark in a number of international classes, so think twice before trying to register Popeye brand spinach, or really anything else for that matter, anywhere in the world.

Popeye's release from copyright protection will be an interesting test for what will happen when other major cartoon characters enter the public domain. Barring another successful lobbying campaign, Disney will see Mickey Mouse come into the public domain in 2023.

Happy New Year!

Saturday, December 20, 2008

You know you're big when someone tries to trademark your name

And now, the latest news from the intellectual property in sports desk: NFL quarterback Vince Young is suing three individuals who have tried to register his nicknames, "VY" and "Invinceable," with the USPTO. According to USA Today, Young's lawyer has said that the trademark registration has stood in the way of a deal with Reebok, who was apparently interested in marketing some "VY" merchandise.

I checked it out on TESS and, sure enough, the mark is currently registered. (To see for yourself, go to the uspto.gov website, click on trademarks on the left side, and then click on TESS, the third option down. Enter the mark in the "New User Form Search.")

For an enlightening discussion of the ins and outs of using personal names as trademarks, check out the latest edition of Stephen Elias and Richard Stim's Trademark: Legal Care for your Business & Product Name. (That link is to the eBook, which requires a library card to log in. If you don't have one and you're a California resident, you're in luck: SFPL has a brand-new eCard, which gives CA residents access to thousands of online resources. Learn more about it here.)

Trademark woes aside, it must be quite an ego-booster when somebody feels that your name or nickname is valuable enough to merit a trademark registration!

Friday, December 19, 2008

Take it from the agency -- 3 great free publications from the USPTO and the Copyright Office

The way that laws and regulations is written is extremely important. If the wording is imprecise, enterprising people find loopholes and, before you know it, the intent of the law is undermined. Our Federal goverment has a couple of hundred years' experience creating the kind of air-tight prose that holds up to scrutiny, and while this kind of language is important for those interested in the law, it's almost always incomprehensible for those poor folks (call them laypeople) who have to try to do some kind of business with the government.

The commercial publishing industry certainly has picked up on the market for people who want help dealing with the government, and many of the millions of people each year who want to apply for a patent or register a trademark or copyright get some help using titles from NOLO Press, Sphinx, Oceana, and other publishers.

It's worth noting that, in addition to commercially produced guides to intellectual property, the agencies themselves (in this case the USPTO and the US Copyright Office) have done an excellent job of creating materials to educate the public about these areas of law. Although commercial publishers have the advantage of being able to offer subjective legal advice to readers, the agencies themselves are the most authoritative source for information about intellectual property. Below are just three examples of publications that I find particularly useful:

Copyright Circular 1: Copyright Basics
United States Copyright Office

There are some people who need lots of detailed information about copyright in the U.S. Attorneys, for instance. Or artists who plan to use someone else's work or prevent someone else from using their work. Recording industry executives seem pretty interested in our copyright law, as do some Members of Congress. For these folks, there are mountains of materials, published by commercial, academic, and government presses, covering laws, legislation, case history, trends, etc. in the field of copyright.

For the rest of us, there's a wonderfully concise series of publications, called Circulars, that come to us courtesy of the U.S. Copyright Office. There are a couple dozen of these things, covering pretty much every matter of business most folks will ever have with the Copyright Office. I'm not promising a riveting read (example: Circular 4oA, Deposit Requirements for Registration of Claims to Copyright in Visual Arts Material). I do think, however, that in an information environment rife with misinformation (I'm referring to the Internet), it's extremely important to have reliable, authoritative information about legal topics. Copyright Circular 1 is just that. It's readable, informative, comprehensive, and pretty darn concise considering the breadth of the subject matter that it covers. This is an excellent place to begin any copyright research.

A Guide to Filing a Utility Patent Application
US Patent and Trademark Office

David Pressman's Patent it Yourself is probably our most popular guide to filing a utility patent. One of the major selling points of the book is Pressman's direct, no-frills writing style. It's a testament to the complexity of the patent system, then, that such a concise writer still requires 572 pages (in the latest edition) to demonstrate how to get a patent.

A Guide to Filing a Utility Patent Application, the USPTO's consumer patent application pamphlet, is 16 pages long and is, arguably, as indispensable for fledgling patentees as Pressman's book. How? It's written in haiku (not true). The pamphlet is actually short simply because it contains a lot less information than Pressman's book does. It is, however, still very useful because it contains the very basic facts about what patent examiners expect from a utility patent application in one short, direct, and authoritative volume.

Think of it this way: Will the Periodical Table of the Elements tell a layperson everything about chemistry? Of course not. But, when used alongside other, more expository texts, it is an essential reference in that field. Same goes with A Guide to Filing a Utility Patent Application. Here at the library, we keep copies on hand for quick reference.

(By the way, if you want to know everything there is to know about U.S. patent prosecution, I refer you to the Manual of Patent Examining Procedure, all four inches (thickness, that is) of small print and tissue-thin paper.)


Basic Facts About Trademarks
US Patent and Trademark Office

There are few trademark questions that come across our reference desk that have an answer that cannot be found in the USPTO's Basic Facts About Trademarks. Should I register my mark? Page 1! How do I submit a colored drawing? Page 6! How long does my registration last? Page 14! There's even a current International Schedule of Goods and Services on pages 16-17. Basic Facts does for trademark researchers what A Guide to Filing a Utility Patent Application does for wannabe patentees; that is, it acts as a starting point, an unassuming collection of the facts essential to a basic understanding of the trademark process.

The USPTO did us all a favor by adopting a question-and-answer format for this brochure, and that, to me, is what makes it stand out among trademark informational brochures, of which there are many. Most of us who are using trademark informational brochures don't know the first thing about trademarks. Though we may have a specific question that brings us to the brochure, we may notice another question that we didn't even know we had. Intent to use? Tell me more! Also handy is the "trademark, patent, or copyright?" segment at the very beginning of the brochure, which can save the true new-comer the trouble of exploring the wrong avenues of intellectual property.

There's much more available from the agencies that you can access for free by visiting the USPTO and Copyright Office websites, or by stopping in to see us at the public library.

Friday, December 12, 2008

Update: Another piece of the trademark search puzzle, available here at the library

Update, 8/25: Trademarkscan was many things to many people, but one thing that it wasn't, at least at the San Francisco Public Library, was popular. I'm sorry to report that TMScan is no longer available at the Patent and Trademark Center. Please get in touch if you're interested in learning about alternative approaches to state TM searching.

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A proper trademark search can be quite a puzzle, particularly because there is no one central place to find the information. Though there is a Federal trademark registry that's pretty easy to work with, the USPTO does not have a monopoly on trademark registrations. As I've mentioned in a previous post (and as I'm realizing I should write about in more depth in the future), a mark doesn't necessarily have to be registered with the USPTO to be enforceable. Remember, the purpose of a trademark is to help consumers identify products and services. It follows, then, that a longstanding mark associated with a particular enterprise may have some protection, regardless of registration status.

What's best for consumers isn't necessarily good for trademark searchers, however. To research a mark that's intended for use across the country, a Federal trademark search is a good start, but there are a couple of other elements that a completist searcher will want to consult. The first, a common law trademark search, can be done using a few resources that the Business, Science, and Technology department here at the library has. You can read about that here.

Another component of the search process is finding marks registered in individual states. Many businesses only operate within a particular state, and in those cases, registration within that state may be sufficient. A trademark registration in a particular state may interfere with use of the mark within that state, so it's wise to check state trademark registries as part of a trademark search. You can check each state individually -- to search California trademarks, for instance, visit the Secretary of State's website -- but, for those able to come into the library, we have a tool that allows one-stop shopping for state trademark registrations. It's called Trademarkscan, and it's a for-pay database that you can use for free at the library. Using Trademarkscan, you can perform a search across all fifty states of registered trademarks. If you have a mark that you think that you may want to use in several states, this could be a real timesaver for you.