copyright intellectual-property trademark patents
Commercial usage of photos of extreme close-up of popular electronics
<p>Let's say I make a photo of iPhone screen through the microscope, so field of view of the photo is just several pixels and individual RGB components of the screen are visible - so it's not possible for a non-specialist viewer to know this is from an iPhone. And I want to use this photo commercially (for example, by selling merchandise with it).</p>

<p>Can this infringe Apple's or the screen manufacturer's rights? (copyright, trade marks, design patents, etc.) Does it matter if I label the photo as iPhone screen?</p>

<p>Photographs of physical objects do. Not infringe copyright. You are not making an iPhone so there are no patent issues. Go for it.</p>

<p>I'm assuming you're interested in United States law here.</p>

<p>The question of patents is easy: patents are about giving someone a limited monopoly to produce something in exchange for them disclosing how they did it.  You're not making a cell phone here, so patent issues don't apply.</p>

<p>Trademark is nearly as easy: any use of the "iPhone" name is likely to be <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nominative_use" rel="nofollow noreferrer">nominative use</a>, where you're using the name to refer to the actual product by Apple.  There's no problem with doing this.</p>

<p>This leaves only copyright.  You're indisputably copying something that Apple created, so the question becomes one of "is the physical design of the iPhone screen copyrightable?".  The answer there is a clear "no", on two grounds.  First, an iPhone screen doesn't fall under any of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_law_of_the_United_States#Works_subject_to_copyright_law" rel="nofollow noreferrer">categories of things that can be copyrighted</a>, and second, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_law_of_the_United_States#Useful_articles" rel="nofollow noreferrer">useful articles</a> can't be copyrighted even if they do fall into one of those categories.</p>

<p>So, your proposed close-up photos don't infringe on any of Apple's intellectual-property rights.  Go ahead and make them.</p>
