Is the Stylized "R" font trademarked?

ct98saffv70r · Post by **ct98saffv70r** » 05 Sep 2012, 11:02

Hi. I was thinking about a cool piece of merchandise to make using Volvo's "R" logo... how can i avoid getting in trouble with Volvo when creating merchandise that shows the "R" that we love so much?

Post by **Ozark Lee** » 05 Sep 2012, 20:04

I'm guessing no since IPD uses it on the Pegasus replica wheels. I seem to recall other attempts to copyright letters and/or numbers and the courts have ruled that you cannot copyright a single letter or a number.

Some fonts are a different story, I remember early versions of CorelDraw had sets of fonts with made up "sounds like" names that were exact replicas of other commercially available fonts. I think the fonts thing was more of the rights holder to the font wanting compensation for including their font package in another commercially available program. They never cared what an end user did with the font, I don't pay a royalty to type what I am typing now and I doubt that Matt does either.

...Lee

byeboy · Post by **byeboy** » 05 Sep 2012, 20:11

I offer my observation that there are too many lawyers in this world!

Post by **matthew1** » 06 Sep 2012, 14:04

Well, there's copyright for "works", and trademarks, for stylized representations. This may be a trademark issue. For low-run things my friends (bands, small business, etc.) and I have not gotten permission, but not gotten a call, either. Who is going to alert Warner Bros. about a 200-run t-shirt printing, printed and distributed in Denver? Nobody. (We used Bugs Bunny's likeness. Rock band promotion, years ago.)

If you're unsure, call a lawyer. Or check around -- if you don't mind being less sure on the advice you get -- the Internet for a legal forum.