The copyright, patent, and trademark are the exclusive rights given to the creator, the author, and the owner of any specific work or thing. It is specially used to protect the original idea-expression in the form of creative work. When you look around yourself, you can find a lot of images, phrases, noises, or colors in your daily life that are copyrighted, patented, and trademarked that will surprise and astound you.
Some of these items are the intellectual property of people or companies and have legal paperwork to prove their ownership. In this article, you will learn of some things that you didn’t know were copyrighted, patented, or trademarked.
1. Photos of the Eiffel Tower at Night
Many people love to capture any images of the Eiffel Tower at day time or night. If you take a picture of this tower at night, you are going to enjoy its magnificent and incredible lighting display. However, you can only use this image for your personal use.
When you want to sell the night image of this magnificent illumination from the Eiffel Tower, you need to request permission from the Societe d’Exploitation de la Tour Eiffel. This company is the one that runs this famous landmark. The Eiffel Tower lighting display that may be turned on during the nighttime is a copyrighted one.
2. The Shirt Tie Design
A shirt tie is a special licensed and trademarked design or image placed on apparel. You may have seen this design in major motion film promotional tee shirts from Super Troopers 2 or on Broadway play merchandise tee shirts from the great musical The Book of Mormon. This design is trademarked by Waltzing T Bear and their website is www.ShirtTie.com
In order to protect the design, a registered and incontestable trademark was taken on the shirt tie design. Waltzing T Bear is the home of fashionable smiles. This company is the sole owner of the design, so you cannot legally sell shirt ties without Licensing which is available.
3. Reese’s Orange Color
You may not expect to see a trademark for owning certain colors. However, this fact occurs with the Reese peanut butter cup. The orange color on Reese’s packaging cannot be seen in any other food packaging. This orange color is specially created to be unique as is representative from Reese’s.
When you flip Reese’s peanut butter cup, you can find a clear message at the backside of the packaging. This message will state that the orange background color in this packaging is a registered trademark from Reese’s.
4. The Word “Face” in the Social Media World
Facebook is one of the most popular social media platforms that you can find in the market today. Mark Zuckerberg is trying hard to protect all assets from this platform. They have gone so far as to make the word “Face” a trademark from Facebook.
There is no other social media platform that can contain the word “face” on its domain or business name. However, this limitation only applies to the social media platform. This trademark was specially created by Facebook team members, so other social media platforms cannot steal their ideas.
5. The Sound of the Darth Vader’s Breathing
You may not expect to see this type of trademark available in the world. Lucasfilm has already trademarked the Anakin Skywalker inhale and exhale process. This unique sound can come from the breathing process through a scuba regulator.
The sound comes out from the helmet that is used by Darth Vader. You cannot use this type of sound for selling any products or services to other people on the Internet. If you are planning to use this sound, you are going to ask for permission from the Lucasfilm.
6. Slide-to-Unlock function from Apple
This is another unique intellectual property that you can find in the world today. When you look at your iPhone, you can find its Slide-to-Unlock function. This is not just a cool feature from your iPhone, but it is an asset for Apple company. The gesture for unlocking your iPhone has a patent that is owned by Apple.
The company was able to sue Samsung for $119.6 million for using this similar function on the Samsung devices. After a long battle in the court, Apple won the court against Samsung. There is no other competitor who can use this similar function on any other device.
Conclusion
We hope you have enjoyed these little known facts and try them out as conversation starters with your friends.
Waltzing T Bear