internet trademark copyright-notice
copyright, trademark and patent
<p>Can someone trademark a logo that is well established because it is on a company website and the company did not trademark it? Can someone patent your logo if you did not patent it? Or are all the rights protected because the website has a copyright notice at the bottom of the webpage?</p>
<p>For example Bitcoin logo is not trademarked or patented so does the owner of bitcoin have all rights because bitcoin.org has a copyright notice at the bottom?</p>

<p>Logos cannot be patented. Not by anyone. That ois noty what patents do. Some logos are protected by copyright, many are too simple and do not have the&quot;originality&quot; under US law and the laws of those countries that use a similar standard.</p>
<p>As for trademark, trademark laws vary significantly from one country to another, and the question does not say what country is involved. Also, a mark (which can include a name, a logo, a slogan, and other recognizable words, symbols or images used to identify a product or service) may be protected fully in one country, and not at all in another. This is unlike copyright, where most modern works are protected in all countries.</p>
<p>In some countries there is no protection against competing use without registration. In some, including the US, mere use gives a degree of protection.</p>
<p>It should also be noted that trademarks are usually limited to a category or kind of product.  Suppose company Alpha trademarks a purple oval with two red squares as a logo for a brand of beer. Then company Beta wants to use a very similar logo (the oval is slightly more elongated, otherwise the same) for a line of automobiles. No one is going to confuse a car with a beer (I hope), so Beta's use of the mark will not be infringing. There are official lists of categories in each country (many now use an international list), and a trademark registration must specify which categories the mark is for. This is again unlike a copyright. There is an exception for &quot;well-known&quot; or &quot;famous&quot; marks, which get wider protection. One probably cannot use the Coca Cola mark for a line of autos, for example.</p>
<p>In most countries an attempt to register a mark in actual use by a different firm for a competing product will fail if this is noticed by the officials. However, that someone else holds a copyright on the mark (assuming it is copyrightable) will not prevent registration if it is not in use, although any use might be a copyright infringement.</p>
<p>During the registration process there is a chance for the owner of a similar mark to object, and if the objection is accepted the registration fails.The details vary by country.</p>
<p>Under current law, a copyright notice does not grant any rights not already present, and does not grant any rights over content not protectable by copyright. A logo on a page with a copyright notice may or may not be protected by copyright.</p>
<p>For example, consider the well-known logo of Target, a red circle with a smaller white circle in the center. This is an effective logo, but it is too simp0le to be protected by copyright. Any protection it has will come from trademark laws.</p>
<p>Note also that if someone registers a trademark but does not ise it, the registration may be canceled after a time. I think that the time is 5 years in the US. So a &quot;squatter&quot; who registered someone else's mark but  did not use it would lose any rights after a limited time. This is again unlike copyright, which lasts for many years once a work is created, whether is is published or used or not.</p>
