Why Is It Important To Copyright A Logo Design And How to Do It?

AIGA, the professional association for design, defines copyright as:
“It is the exclusive right of control, reproduction and commercial exploitation of your creative work. Copyright protects any kind of artwork, including illustrations, photographs and graphic design.”

Why Is It Important To Copyright Logo Design?

For any form of art, it is important to protect it so that it is not plagiarized or exploited by others. The idea of small new brands stealing logo design ideas from big successful brands is not uncommon. There have been countless cases where a law suit has been the ultimate consequence of all that. But the major drawback is that this also results in big losses for the big brands as the small company diverts the customers’ attention to itself. For this purpose, it is very important to secure your logo design from plagiarism.

How to Copyright a Logo Design ?

If you observe, almost all of the brands, established or small, include a small script of the symbols ©, ® or ™in their logo to protect its rights.
What do they mean and how are they different from each other?
There are 2 basic ways to copy right a logo design:

1. Mark your logo as copyrighted:

Include the sign of logo design copyright to your logo design. This way you are already forewarning others about the copyright laws. The stealer would think before using your copyrighted logo anywhere as then he would be eligible to some legal action.

Copyright laws protect ownership of things like music, writing, artwork, photographs and other original works of authority. The 1976 copyright law generally gives the owner of copyright exclusive right to reproduce the copyrighted work. But copyright protects the form of the expression rather than the actual matter itself. For example, a description of a product can be copyrighted but that cannot legally stop others from writing a description of their own or making and using the product with another description.

The Trademark, however, is a sign of trade and let the buyer know who has made the product. The Trademark laws protect names, symbols of sounds. The trademark logo design may protect others from making a similar mark and using it to represent another product. But it will not stop others from making the same product under s different name.

Adding the copyright logo design or a trademark logo design is the best way for small businesses to secure their logo designs if they cannot afford the heavy registration fees.

2. Register it with the proper authority:

Another way to further secure infringement is to formally register the logo design with the proper relevant authority. Normally, registration rights and its registration applications are provided by the government where the client has to pay a certain submission fee to protect their designs. Then you are eligible to add an ® to your logo design. After that if any individual uses your logo design anywhere, he is eligible to a lawsuit. This is the way many companies have secured their original creations.

This is a securer way to protect your designs as compared to copyright or trademark.
If you observe carefully, all the big brands have a small ® in their brand logo to protect the usage and distribution of their logo. Notice the small ® in the coca cola logo or on the right hand of the golden arch?

Hence, to protect its identity, to copyright logo design or to register logo design is very important. It is a small procedural step to avoid paying a big price later.