T-Shirt Slogan - Possible to claim royalties?

Tracing copyright owners and asking permission.
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Bart
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T-Shirt Slogan - Possible to claim royalties?

Post by Bart »

Hello,
I am new to this so apologise for the lack of knowledge but I cannot find anything on the internet to help me and therefore was wondering if anyone is kind enough to point me in the right direction...

I have thought of a slogan which I think would make a very popular kiddies T-shirt. Can I do the following?

1) check to see if it has already been copy-righted?
2) If not, copyright it?
3) claim royalties for anyone wanting to use it?

Thank you to anyone who could advise.

Bart
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CopyrightAid
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Post by CopyrightAid »

Phrases and slogans are not really significant enough to be subject to copyright.

I believe you would be better off looking either trademarking and/or passing off legislation.

There's a pretty good factsheet on the UKCS site that explains this... Maybe worth a look:
http://www.copyrightservice.co.uk/copyr ... ight_names
Bart
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Post by Bart »

Hello and Thank you for your response.

If not possible to copyright the phrase for the reasons on your attachment, is it possible to patent the phrase being on a T-shirt? I remember hearing about a case where the guy who had created the pure-genius phrase had sued Guinness for using it on a T-shirt.

Is it possible to patent the phrase being on a T-shirt, i.e although anybody is allowed to use the phrase in written text etc, nobody is allowed to print a T-shirt with this phrase on it?

Bart
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Post by CopyrightAid »

As per my previous post:
I believe you would be better off looking either trademarking and/or passing off legislation.
I am not familiar with the case, but the Guiness example you give was almost certainly either a trademark infringement or trading off the Guiness brand (passing off). No more talk about patents please :wink:

You may be able to apply for a trademark - a solicitor would be able to advise if your slogan is suitable and the following link http://www.ipo.gov.uk/tm.htm will also help.
Bart
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Post by Bart »

Thanks again.
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