An Introduction to Licensing I Embroidery Project

Licensing is an everyday part of your embroidery life whether you know it or not. But what is it exactly?

Before you can understand licensing, you must first have a grasp on copyrights and trademarks. According to the U.S. Copyright Office, a copyright is a form of protection provided by the laws of the United States to the authors (creators) of original works of authorship. This includes literary, dramatic, musical, artistic and certain other intellectual works. Furthermore, the Copyright Act of 1976 generally gives the owner of the copyright the exclusive rights to the copyrighted work.

A copyright exists from the moment the intellectual property is created in fixed form. However, in order to seek copyright protection, the author typically will register the copyrighted work with the Library of Congress. But keep in mind that a copyright exists whether registration has been performed or not. In addition, it is no longer required that a copyright notice (the letter C inside a circle) be displayed, though it is beneficial to do so as such identification clearly identifies a copyrighted property.

It should be noted that there are certain things that cannot be copyrighted such as:

A trademark is different from a copyright. According to the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), a trademark is a word, phrase, symbol or design, or a combination of words, phrases symbols or designs, that identifies and distinguishes the source of goods of one party from those of others. Notice that a trademark can be applied to a group of words, while a copyright cannot. Like a copyright, a trademark does not have to be registered, but by registering it with the USPTO, protection of the mark is much easier to accomplish. Unregistered trademarks are identified by TM, while registered ones are identified by the letter “R” within a circle.

Without being an attorney or conducting a good bit of research into copyright and trademark law, this may still seem a bit fuzzy. Look at it this way: if someone else created it, then they (not you) have exclusive rights and control over how it is used. No one can own certain things such as common words or phrases, but they can stake a claim (through trademarks) on the use of such words or phrases in relationship to a product or service. For example, the phrase “Heartbeat of America” is clearly a trademark for Chevrolet. They don’t own the actual words, but they have claimed the phrase as a trademark. If you were to sew this phrase without their permission, then you could be infringing on their trademark. (Clearly, this is a legal matter that would be decided by legal experts, not the author of this article!)

At this point you should have a basic understanding of how copyrights and trademarks work. This in turn will provide the necessary ground work for understanding licensing.