[mechanical_fish]

So the big question is: I've invented a logo. Where do I submit it, along with my identifying information, in order to get a certification (backed up by something that will hold up in court, like a notary's signature) that I uploaded and claimed it on a specific date?

One obvious answer is "The US Copyright Office":

http://www.copyright.gov/eco/index.html

But that's $35 per registration. Seems like one of those online entrepreneurs I keep hearing about might be able to offer a cheaper service, via the web, to every designer in the world.

Of course, a lawyer may tell me that this is useless. Or it might be that the correct answer is "Flickr", and to do more is overkill.

[joshwa]

The good news is that a single registration fee can cover an entire collection of unpublished works, as long as they are by the same author: http://www.copyright.gov/eco/faq.html#eCO_2.3

[troels]

As a designer, you usually have lots of sketches and early version lying around, as well as high resolution versions of the logo. That alone should work as proof that you are the creator.

Otherwise I guess you could e-mail a copy of your logo to your self. If it's a big provider (such as g-mail), the timestamps would be fairly reliable in a court room. Flickr is probably just as good.

[adldesigner]

As a designer, I can copy sketches or make high resolution versions of any logo and claim them as my own pretty easily. That would not work as proof that I'm the creator.

I believe metadata on the files can help. -I'm no lawyer though- or emailing a copy of the logo to yourself like you said.

[dave_au]

I've considered something like an electronic notary system a number of times over the years.

I can imagine having a URL like http://[known and trusted e-notary].com/[user]/[date]/[file or md5sum] would do a lot to discourage any shennanigans.

It wouldn't serve the same purpose as having something actually notarized so you'd have to be clear about that, but it could be a source of evidence when a case went before a court.

Doesn't seem all that technically difficult - md5sums for files and an RSA keypair per day are the common starting points for most of my ideas in that direction.

[dminor]

A google search reveals digistamp.com. I also recall looking into this 6 or 7 years ago and finding a similar service back then.

[feverishaaron]

If he has a work for hire relationship with his clients (pretty common for logo work), it is up to them to submit the logo for copyright, unless he chooses to submit it on their behalf as part of his services.

[ja2ke]

I imagine it would be his clients who copyright their logos, not him. It's a rare day that the designer has any claim of ownership over a logo s/he does on contract.

[quellhorst]

Just upload it to flickr, they should store the uploaded date.

[thinkcomp]

Logos are not copyrightable. You would trademark a logo.

[mbrubeck]

A name is just a trademark, but a logo is a work of art, and may be covered by both trademark and copyright law. For example, the Debian/Firefox controversy hinged on the non-free copyright license governing the Firefox logo artwork: http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=354622

[thinkcomp]

Despite what some random developer says on a bug report, the Firefox logo artwork is actually governed by the Mozilla trademark policy.

http://www.mozilla.org/foundation/trademarks/policy.html

Furthermore, the implication that words are trademarks and logos are non-trademarkable works of art is misleading. Names and phrases registered as trademarks are called word marks, and graphical logos are considered design marks. Both are trademarks (or servicemarks if you're offering a service).

This is a pretty useless discussion in any event. If you're wondering how to protect your logo, you should really ask a lawyer. All I'm saying is that your lawyer will tell you that you should trademark your logo, and that copyrighting it would be a complete waste of your time.

[thinkcomp]

To be more precise, some logos are not copyrightable. From http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ1.pdf:

"Several categories of material are generally not eligible for federal copyright protection. These include among others: ... Titles, names, short phrases, and slogans; familiar symbols or designs; mere variations of typographic ornamentation, lettering, or coloring; mere listings of ingredients or contents."

Every legally protected logo I've ever seen is trademarked either at a state or federal level.

[kwamenum86]

You would only trademark a logo if you plan on associating it with your company and you don't want any other company to use the same or similar artwork in their identifying artwork.

[tesseract]

You could trademark it and then license the trademark to companies that you want to allow to use it. This is pretty common. Some reasons I can think of for this kind of arrangement:

* Parent companies licensing their trademarks to subsidiaries.

* Unrelated companies using similar names who enter into an arrangement where one owns the trademark and the other licenses it. E.g. Tyco International/Tyco Toys, ITT Corp/ITT Tech, Apple Inc/Apple Corps (after Feb 2007).

* Certification, compatibility, or similar logos can be trademarked and licensed to authorized users so the owner can protect against the logo being used in an unauthorized or misleading fashion. E.g. UL Listed logo, Orthodox Union kosher symbol, Windows compatibility stickers.

* Franchising and similar situations. E.g. car dealers, fast-food restaurants, co-ops like IGA and Ace Hardware.

* Avoiding legal hassles that might ensue if the name/logo were not trademarked. E.g. Linux.

[kwamenum86]

Images are copyrightable. It would never make sense to trademark an image because if you can put the image in a fixed medium a) it is free and b) it is protected much longer.

[tesseract]

Copyright only lasts for a certain number of years (unless you're one of the people who thinks the government is going to extend copyright terms forever so Micky Mouse never falls into the PD...) whereas trademarks last forever if you can enforce them.

[dantheman]

Logos are copyrightable, a trademark is stronger -- But of course, you can copyright a logo it's just an image after all and those are very easily copyrightable.