I have often gotten asked, how can you or what does it mean to put that little “R” with the circle around it or the little C with the circle around it on a web site?
Two of the confusing terms you may hear tossed around the web these days is trademark and copyright. Are they different? Are they the same? Do you need either of them? Here is a better way to describe the two.
Trademark
A trademark is a type of intellectual property, such as a name, phrase, logo, design or a combination of two or more of these. If you register your trademark, you can then go after legal proceedings if anybody ever tries to use that trademark without your permission. Check out more information about US trademark law at uspto.gov.
It should also be mentioned that trademarks cost money, due the the registration fees with the government. What are the costs? It could cost anywhere from $300 to $400 per international class. An international class would be, for example, if you sold t-shirts and hats, those would be two different international classes.
Copyright
Copyright is about giving the creator of an original work exclusive rights to that work for a limited time, before it enters public domain. This is a somewhat dated idea these days though, thanks to companies like Disney who keep stretching out how long a copyright should last.
If you want to customize your copyright a little more, you should look into the Creative Commons. Unlike with trademarks, it doesn’t cost anything to claim your copyright. Technically speaking, by law, if you have created something then you own the copyright for it.
When Should I Use Either?
As you can see, the two legal terms trademark and copyright have their own good uses. My general hosting rule of thumb would be to save trademark registration for larger web sites, companies and businesses. Copyright however, that can be used by anybody and everybody.
