This is my field of legal specialty, I'm not making mistakes.
Depending upon what kind of thing you're talking about, it may include elements that are copyrighted, trademarked, service marked, design patented, or regular patents. They're not mutually exclusive.
For example, a Lucasfilm lightsaber could include a copyright for the term as being part of the Star Wars universe, a trademark in the word "lightsaber", a design patent on the physical lightsaber's visual aesthetics, and regular engineering patents if it actually included some kind of new tech (especially if it actually worked like it does in the movies).
In the context of that particular response, I was
indeed responding to Lucasfilm's desire to protect their trademark in the term "lightsaber." However, you don't necessarily need to bring a seperate case to defend the trademark if you're already going after a copyright lawsuit- all those other elements can be brought in later. You can even bring them in serial- assuming you keep your eyes on the various statutes of limitations- and tie up your opponent in court for years, draining their funds.
In a sense, the C&D letter & copyright lawsuit filing is just a warning shot. They don't want anyone using that term for any reason.
If nothing else, the very existence of the letter & suit puts EVERYONE on notice that Lucasfilm is in a mood to protect its IP.
And the thing is, they may be suing in copyright instead of trademark for legal reasons. For instance, they may not have registered "lightsaber" as a trademark, or it may have expired without renewal- it duration is in 10 or 20 year intervals (depending upon when the trademark was initially granted).
Contrast that with the duration of copyrights, already mentioned previously in this thread.
It seems that you're similarly confusing copyright and trademark in your earlier response to me about things being iconic as well. There are very significant differences between these two forms in intellectual property protection.
Nope.
Again, this is my specialty. Given that I work primarily with recorded music, I have to keep track of the standards the courts apply in copyright infringement cases.
Look at any of the notable cases out there,
Rolling Stones v. The Verve;
Queen & David Bowie v. Vanilla Ice;
Satriani v Coldplay;
Ray Parker, Jr. v. Huey Lewis & the News- in each case, the court compares the alleged original work to the alleged infringer. The artist claiming to be the originator can
only win if what they're basing their claim upon is
clearly identifiable as the work the alleged infringer copied.
So, again, if your
Crappy Horse was largely indistinguishable from Winston Churchill's
Naff Horse and Da Vinci's
Cavallo Ubriaco, you're not going to prevail against someone else's
Lousy Horse...unless it is clear that
Lousy Horse is essentially an
exact copy of
Crappy Horse.*
* And also not part of some kind of protected harbor, like parody or fair use.
