Trademarks - How Important are they?

[Hawkshaw_245]

I'm curious about the usefulnees of trademarks in scieince fiction writing, and any merchandising or marketing connected with it

Having grown up with 'Star Wars' and 'Star Trek', I've seen the huge merchandising potential for this genre. But what if you don't have a billion-dollar movie-and-TV franchise, and you're just putting stories and novels?

How important is it to trademark your work?

Trademark - Definition from Microsoft's Encarta96 Encyclopedia


Trademark, any symbol, such as a word, number, picture, or design, used by manufacturers or merchants to identify their own goods and distinguish them from goods made or sold by others. Thus, a trademark identifies the source of a product and fixes responsibility for its quality. If customers like the goods, the trademark enables them to know what to purchase in the future; if they dislike the product, they will avoid goods with that trademark. The name of a type of product cannot be a trademark, because every maker of that product is free to use its name. Sony, for example, is a well-known trademark for televisions, radios, and audio equipment, but no one can have trademark rights to the word television or radio. On several occasions, however, words intended by manufacturers to be used as trademarks for new products were instead used by customers to name the products; such words then lost their legal status as trademarks. Examples include aspirin, cellophane, and escalator.

 

[dustinzgirl]

Brand Equity--or trademarks, if you will, are very important to a business.

The perception of a brand is related to the equity it has. Amber (2000) has defined brand equity as an intangible asset built by marketing, and which exists largely in the heads of stakeholders, especially those of the end user. The author further pointed out that if a company got its brand equity right, profits shall largely take care of it. The import of this statement can be understood from the components that make the equity of a brand. These are brand awareness and brand image. A brand that people have good knowledge about and can readily recall with favorable associations is an enduring asset to whoever owns it. Furthermore, it would have favorable image and therefore well perceived. Such a brand can be said to have a higher equity or value. It is not too difficult to sell products and services with this brand name tacked on it. Higher volumes of sales at minimal costs transcend into higher profits.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

For the most part, there isn't any merchandising associated with the books that people write, so no reason to throw money away registering a trademark.

Copyright protects intellectual property -- which means that no one can take whole chunks of your original work and copy that -- and no one else is going to want to make use of your "brand name" if has no proven monetary value.

Where trademarks and books come in is (usually) when the other "merchandise" (a game, a movie, etc.) already exists, and the books spin off from that.

 

[Hawkshaw_245]

So, what if I had commissioned artwork associated with my book?

Wouldn't the warrant a trademark?

With a SF novel there are ships, aliens, key scenes in the story.....sounds like a trademark would protect that.

I'm planning to set up a string of artwork projects in association with my writing projects.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

Art is copyrighted, too, and I believe it usually remains the intellectual property of the artist (which makes sense, since they do the hard part, you just provide the idea), even though you pay for the use of it.

With a SF novel there are ships, aliens, key scenes in the story.....sounds like a trademark would protect that.

Not trademarks, copyright -- if these things are presented in your book in unique ways. Trademarks are even more specific and unique, and wouldn't apply to scenes, characters, and so forth in a book anyway. I think you have a serious confusion about what trademarks and copyrights do and are for.

 

[Mark Robson]

So, what if I had commissioned artwork associated with my book?

Wouldn't the warrant a trademark?

With a SF novel there are ships, aliens, key scenes in the story.....sounds like a trademark would protect that.

I'm planning to set up a string of artwork projects in association with my writing projects.

There are times when trademarking something will protect you more than a copyright, but they are very limited. For instance, to take your example, if you were to write a string of stories following a single spaceship - battlestar galactica style - then you might want to trademark the name of the ship. If you had a hero who was the focus of all your stories - Biggles, Spiderman, Bob the Builder to give three very different examples, then the same might apply. However, you would not need to worry about trademarking such a name/object unless you had first gained the sort of book deal that led you to believe your character/object would become the focus of the merchandise industry.

To my knowledge you would still have limited rights over your characters without a trademark. I'm also pretty certain no one else could trademark your creation without your consent, so the only time you might stand to lose would be if you failed to trademark at some point during an explosion of popularity. I suspect you would have an inkling this was going to happen before most other people, so I wouldn't worry about it too much.

My question to you is: do you know how to secure your copyright? If not, then this is quite simple. Place copies of your material into a sealed envelope. Sign across the seal and place clear tape over the seal to protect the signature - then mail it to yourself by whatever your version of registered mail is i.e. on a service which requires a record to be kept. Then put the dated, sealed envelope somewhere safe and DO NOT OPEN IT. This is your proof of copyright that would stand up in any court around the world.

 

[mistri]

My question to you is: do you know how to secure your copyright? If not, then this is quite simple. Place copies of your material into a sealed envelope. Sign across the seal and place clear tape over the seal to protect the signature - then mail it to yourself by whatever your version of registered mail is i.e. on a service which requires a record to be kept. Then put the dated, sealed envelope somewhere safe and DO NOT OPEN IT. This is your proof of copyright that would stand up in any court around the world.

I thought I'd read this wouldn't stand up in court, but as I can't find evidence of that online now, please ignore this post.

Ah, found a link to 'poor man's copyright' on wiki, but I don't have enough posts to do links yet

(It can be abused - e.g. post yourself an unsealed envelope (you can often do this just by tucking the flaps inside each other) to get the postmark/registered delivery and stick your material in later).

 

[Mark Robson]

I thought I'd read this wouldn't stand up in court, but as I can't find evidence of that online now, please ignore this post.

Ah, found a link to 'poor man's copyright' on wiki, but I don't have enough posts to do links yet

(It can be abused - e.g. post yourself an unsealed envelope (you can often do this just by tucking the flaps inside each other) to get the postmark/registered delivery and stick your material in later).

Most interesting. Obviously I have been deluding myself over the last ten years! I'm clearly not devious enough to consider such deception. I'm guessing that computer evidence like dates of document creation can probably be faked as well ... oh, well. I must admit that I preferred it when I was ignorant of such things. Now you've made me reconsider my own copyrighting!

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

In the US, according to current copyright law, your work becomes copyright the moment you set it down in writing. But in order to prove that copyright in a court of law it may be necessary to register it (which is why publishers do so as a matter of course).

I believe the put it in an envelope and mail it to yourself ploy has been proven to be an old wives' tale (though I can't remember where I read that). Someone decided that would be the logical way to go about it; others took up the idea; once it had spread far enough it took on an air of authority. If everyone says a thing, naturally everyone believes it to be true ... except the courts.

It seems to me that the existence of copious notes and early drafts (I almost always save mine) would serve as compelling evidence in a court of law. But the safest way, if you publish something, is to register the copyright.

Trademarks apply to brand names, logos, and the unique design of a packaged product. You can't by the way, copyright or trademark the title of a book (unless that title becomes the brand name of some associated merchandise like a game), but I think you can trademark the name of a line of books or an imprint (even so, I think there is usually some sort of logo involved), because then you are talking about a brand name.

Here's a dictionary definition of the word "trademark":

the name, symbol, figure, letter, word, or mark adopted and used by a manufacturer or merchant in order to designate his goods and to distinguish them from any other

Obviously, not everything used as a trademark (letters of the alphabet) can be registered as such, but I think it's safe to assume that it has to be one of these things before it can be registered as such. Equally obviously, nothing inside a book would serve in this capacity, and the author's name on the cover serves to distinguish it as his/her work, so a trademark would be superfluous -- until and unless that author puts out a line of books by different hands that share something created by the author (for instance, characters, or a unique setting) in which case it becomes a "brand." Then there would be some reason to trademark the name, to distinguish those books that belong to that line from all the other books which don't. The content would still remain under the umbrella of copyright.

 

[BookStop]

If you want to protect your company, catchphrase, or logo - trademark.
If you want to protect your art, manuscript, or even dance sequence - copyright.

It's been my understanding that you can't trademark something like characters in a book until they are already nationally recognized as part of a certain work. I don't know exactly where I read that, although maybe when I was researching registering my name and wanted to trademark my catchphrase. Hmm, but anyway, a copyright would do what you need it to.

 

[Locksmith]

In the UK, you need to register a trademark for it to be enforceable, unlike copyright associated with literary or artistic works which accrue automatically. I don't know if the position is the same in the States, sounds like it is. So you've got to persuade someone it's worth protecting.

Essentially a trademark is designed to protect your brand investment - you could Trademark the name Star Wars and the distinctive logo if you were going to sell products under the logo, but not the characters, creatures and ideas (which are protected by copyright, even if you gave them a fancy name and logo).

So, for Sci-Fi writing and shows, it's ultimately not as important as copyright. What it allows you to stop is people selling their own products off the back of your name. For companies which make a generic product and sell a brand, like Coke or Pepsi, trademarks are their most important asset (whatever they might tell you about "secret recipes").

 

[Hawkshaw_245]

I had always been told, and had read...that a writer should think of his work as a business. Being eloquent and engaging in your prose is fine.

But I want to get PAID!!! I've done the 'starving artist' bit.

So, I'm exploring avenues for promoting my work, and to earn additional $$$ on the side.

So, that's why I asked about trademarks and such.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

I had always been told, and had read...that a writer should think of his work as a business.

And as such you should become informed about the copyright laws. You can do that best by doing some research. Asking people online about these vital matters is not really the best way to go about it, because you'll get so many different answers it will confuse you.

 

[Hawkshaw_245]

And as such you should become informed about the copyright laws. You can do that best by doing some research. Asking people online about these vital matters is not really the best way to go about it, because you'll get so many different answers it will confuse you.

I've been doing a little research. I just wanted to hear some insight from others.

 

[Brian G Turner]

In my opinion, Trademark is essentially a way of protecting a *brand* rather than a work, so I personally don't see any need for aspiring novellists to be particularly concerned about Trademark issues - and Mark's note about posting a recorded and unopened copy to yourself is a first step in being able to prove ownership of a work at a particular date, and I think certainly worth doing.