Logo Design Help

[wmpulse]

When working with a designer always specify that you don't want any clipart used in your logo. The car silhouette IS generic. Text is generic. It's the combination and arrangement of elements that make something individual or unique. Technically speaking, an original piece of work IS "copyrighted" by the creator upon creation... if not copied from another source. There are methods to secure this copyright, but for the most part it is inherently difficult to show copy "rights" in a court of law without them being registered. A Trademark has to be registered as distinguishable from any other mark by the Trademark office. A Trademark can be a logo mark, or simply a "name" registered within a particular category. Logos and such can be very similar and not have grounds for court action. The determining factor is whether or not your customers would confuse a competitor's mark with yours and lead to a loss of sales as a result. Otherwise, it's really a waste of time to pursue copyright infringement on a similar mark (unless it is ABSOLUTELY blatant and has undeniably been copied AND it was not created from clipart).

I Hope that makes sense. The lesson to learn here is... stay away from clipart. It has no individual rights and is useable by anyone that has access to such clipart