As an artist it's sometimes difficult thinking about the
business side of our profession. Most
people don't have a clue that a photograph is instantly protected by copyright
the moment it's captured. This is the sole reason for having the ugly copyright
notification on our work displayed both here and on Face Book; it protects the
image and (hopefully) puts people on notice.
And you don't need to be a professional photographer as any image from
any person is equally protected. (That's
why we always ask a client who took the image whenever we're asked about
printing.)
Likewise the name of the studio is equally at risk, thus
the need to properly register the name as a trademark. While you don't necessarily need to go
through the steps of actual registration it will help in the long run to
properly protect your name from unauthorized use.
Late last year we were notified by one of our clients that
they had stumbled upon an Iron Creek Photography that didn't look like our work
and were mildly confused. It turned out
it wasn't us, rather someone else. We had
been using the name Iron Creek Photography since 2006 and felt we had the
trademark for it; as it turns out we were correct. After communicating with the other folks they
changed their name. However it got us
thinking.
Last September we contacted Legalforcelaw.com to begin the steps
necessary to properly protect Iron Creek Photography. Yesterday we were contacted telling us our
request for trademark Iron Creek Photography had been approved on August 6,
2013 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office. The following is directly from that
notification:
On Thursday, December 27, 2012, a U.S. federal trademark registration was filed
for IRON CREEK PHOTOGRAPHY by Libby,
Don, Tucson , AZ 85739
We wanted to share the good news about the protection and
ask those who are inclined to do so please share the news.
As always, thanks for allowing us to share and we promise
next time we'll include images....
Sandy & Don
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