Copyright protects somebody’s original work which is in fixed form, but it does not protect colors, typeface, and other similar attributes of the logo, but trademarks do.
If you have designed a unique logo for yourself or any company and you want it not to be used by others without your permission or claiming that this is other’s creation, then you need to copyright and also trademark your logo.
Copyright is mostly not used for the logo, but it is for literary or artistic work like books, paintings, etc.
Difference between Copyright and Trademark
Copyright, any of your work, means only securing your rights but not fully protecting it. For example, if a logo is designed by you and you copyright it, then nobody can claim that it is designed by someone else. Copyright is crucial for the protection of the logo. Trademark can adequately protect your name and logo from being used by anyone for their purpose. The interesting thing about the Trademark is it never expire. You can use it as long as you want. Copyright is used to protect literary and artistic work. On the other hand, a trademark is used to safeguard the brand of the company such as a logo.
Copyright a Logo
Copyright does protection of an artistic work. It can be anything for example Songs, Programming Code, Computer Software, Book, Poetry, etc. Copyrighting a logo is quite difficult because it is hard to be classified as an undeniably original work. Copyright covers both published and unpublished works. Both copyright and trademarks provide you with an excellent way to protect your original work from being used as the property of someone else.
Large scale companies usually copyright their audio, video and written or designed materials like the logo, etc. Nobody could claim copyright on the logo which is similar to your logo. So it is important to verify that the logo you are going to use is not akin to the other one. The logo must have the required level of creativity to consider it as copyrightable. Before filing any logo/artistic work, you need to do research online using US official website or by visiting the Copyright Office. Difficulties could be faced if we just directly file copyright of our work. If our work is similar to the other party, it could be opposed by them.
Submitting Form Online
There is copyright form available to download from US official website to submit information about your logo along with your personal address and method of online payment. You also need to attach one or two copies of your logo with the registration form. Note that these copies will not be returned. If an application is submitted electronically, then you will receive an email acknowledging that your application was received after you finish the submission process.
For the registration of artistic work, the applicant will place an advertisement in the newspaper and submits two copies of this ad to the registrar copyrights. Then applicant will wait for few days for any objection from others.
Registration Fees
The registration fees for copyrighting any work is $39. If you want to send the application in paper form, then the price is $65.
Confirmation Mail
After all the above process you will receive an email about the registration of your copyright, it will clarify you that your original work is successfully submitted and will show a pending status for approval.