Know-How Exchange : Branding

Actually, you should not copyWRITE the idea. You should copyRIGHT the idea.

Just remember that a copyright doesn't give you any protection unless you're prepared to enforce it. Let's say you copyright some expression, then find that someone else is using it. Are you prepared to do the research to demonstrate that you had first rights? Are you ready to hire an attorney to get them to stop using it? Or are you just planning to rattle your saber a little bit and hope they'll back down because you claim first rights?

The real issue is the value of your unique expression. If it's not worth more than the legal fees to protect it, then it doesn't really matter whether you copyright it or not. If it IS worth more, then of course you should copyright it. Just recognize that a copyright isn't a guarantee that nobody else will use your intellectual property.

(I am NOT a lawyer, and this should not be considered legal advice.)

MGOODMAN's right.

This is legal ground and we should be careful how we tread.

My recommendation is you should get legal advice for this one. Is there anything else I can do for you?

Your Servant, Deremiah, *CPE (Customer Passion Evangelist)

There will always be copycats and idea stealers. One way to look at it is the old saying that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. You’ve got an idea for a T-shirt “expressions”…I’m guessing these are sayings, quotes, or quips which have a common thread. It would be almost impossible to trademark this kind of thing. My (albeit non-legal) opinion here is just do your due-diligence, look around as much as possible to make sure you’re not stepping on anyone else’s legal toes, and go for it!

Until you start producing and selling your idea, it’s worthless as a commodity. If you’re planning on selling the idea itself to some kind of manufacture for a cut, it would be difficult to track the results of “your” sales. It might be better just to produce iron-ons to sell to the hundreds of vendors out there who do custom T-shirts (flea markets and the like). Hope this helps…good luck on your venture!

hi marsh

i think you should both Copyright and Trademark your idea. but before you do that, just do a calculation, whether the projected revenue you will get from this T-shirt idea is more than the expense you will incurr.

but your idea has to be made in tangible form to be copyrighted, to the best of my knowledge. so it has to be printed if not on a T-shirt but on paper and positive.

when you copyright any idea the year on which you have done it will be written after the "© Copyright" and the copyright will remain in your favour for next 50 years. for details on copyright you can check the following link..

https://www.whatiscopyright.org/

for details about Trademark have a look into the following link...

https://www.ggmark.com/

hope that helps.

cheers!!