The old badge and copyright

Occasionally, people talk about legal issues connected with football, and they make mistakes. I'm sad enough, given my job, to be bothered by this and to feel an impulse to correct them. Fans often reminisce about the old City crest, the round one with a ship and red rose in the middle. It was discarded because we didn't own the copyright, so the received wisdom goes. NOT TRUE!!



Copyright affects artistic or creative works, not signs or logos. It isn't relevant to the issue of the old badge: there, we find ourselves in the territory of trade mark law.

The old badge wasn't registered as a trade mark when we started to use it, which meant that it was widely used on unofficial merchandise. That meant it couldn't be registered subsequently, because anyone else who's been using a mark prior to registration can challenge the registration and, if they can prove their case, have it cancelled. Registration is vital in the case of a trade mark because it gives the registered owner of the mark the exclusive right to use it (subject to its giving others permission to do so) and they can take enforcement action to prevent unauthorised use.

Ironically, the fact that we haven't used it means that we might now be able to register the old badge as a trade mark. If unofficial sources have stopped using it, they can't object! (We'd have to do a deal with those old style kit people, though!).

If anyone's interested, there's definitions below from the Glossary of the PLC commercial law database.

Copyright

An intellectual property right which seeks to protect the form of expression of ideas, and not the ideas as such (which may be protected by confidentiality). It is intended to reward authors for the creation of original works, that is, works where the author has expended independent effort to create the work. Copyright law is intended to prevent copying but does not provide a monopoly; it does not matter if a similar or identical work already exists provided it has not been copied. It lasts for a set period, most often the life of the author plus 70 years from the end of the calendar year of his death. No formalities need to be observed in the UK for a work to receive copyright protection. Protection in the UK automatically applies to all works recorded in any form provided that they conform to certain requirements.

Trade mark

The term trade mark refer to a sign which can distinguish the (or services) of one trader from those of another. A sign includes, for example, words, logos, pictures, shapes, sounds or smells. The main function of a trade mark is to enable customers to recognise the goods of a particular trader.

Trade marks can be registered nationally or across the EU. Once registered, the owner of a trade mark has a monopoly over the use of the mark for the goods for which it is registered. The monopoly can be maintained indefinitely. A trade mark is infringed if it is used without the consent of the owner.