Can a &#174; so small as to be reduced to a dot confer any legal protection? The Bank of America iPhone app's icon has a very small ® next to the logo (shown below). The ®, barely visible in the blown-up picture below, is reduced to a small, vaguely pinkish dot on any device where the app may be found running, making its interior &quot;R&quot; practically indiscernible. I am wondering whether the implied presence of this symbol is still capable of carrying any legal force considering that the symbol itself cannot be made out.
In united-states trademark law, 15 U.S.C. § 1111 provides that: Notice of registration; display with mark; recovery of profits and damages in infringement suit Notwithstanding the provisions of section 1072 of this title, a registrant of a mark registered in the Patent and Trademark Office, may give notice that his mark is registered by displaying with the mark the words &quot;Registered in U.S. Patent and Trademark Office&quot; or &quot;Reg. U.S. Pat. &amp; Tm. Off.&quot; or the letter R enclosed within a circle, thus ®; and in any suit for infringement under this chapter by such a registrant failing to give such notice of registration, no profits and no damages shall be recovered under the provisions of this chapter unless the defendant had actual notice of the registration. Notice that display of the symbol is optional, the registrant &quot;may give notice&quot; by using the phrase or the ® symbol. But if such notice is not given a significant element of damages in case of an infringement is forfeit unless the infringer had &quot;actual notice&quot; of the registration of the mark. Since the purpose is to give notice that a word, symbol, logo or other indication is in fact a registered mark, making the registration so small that it cannot easily be seen might tend to defeat that purpose. If an infringer claimed not to be aware that an indication was a registered mark, and if the notice was displayed or printed in so small a form that this claim was plausible, it might raise an issue in an infringement suit. I have not found any caselaw on the point. &quot;Finessing the Details of Type: Registered, Trademark, &amp; Copyright Symbols&quot; by Ilene Strizver advises that: These symbols are used at so small a size that they should be neutral in appearance, yet clear at the size they will be reproduced at ... when using a ® or a ™ after a word, the size should be adjusted as necessary, independently from the rest of the text, to look clear and legible, yet unobtrusive. Its proportion next to the neighboring word or glyph depends a lot on the final size of each appearance. A general guideline for text is to make these symbols a little smaller than half the x-height. As the type gets larger, the symbols can become proportionately smaller, especially in headlines. However this is a guide for typesetters and graphic designers, and is not legal advice. Several sources indicate that a single use of the R-in-a-circle in connection with a particular mark in any given document or set of packaging is sufficient (as is also mentioned in a comment). If elsewhere in the same web site the logo is displayed in a larger size, with a larger version of the symbol, that would probably offer all the protection needed under US law. This answer is US-centric. Law elsewhere may or may not be similar.
What you are describing may be the crime of insurance fraud: to avoid that, you would have to admit to the insurance company that you put a "Please steal me" sign in an unlocked car with the keys in the ignition, in a high-crime area. If we remove some of the elements of the scenario and reduce this to "leaving the keys in the ignition", this would probably be be considered contributory negligence, meaning that you failed to act prudently to protect your property. This can reduce the amount that the insurance company has to pay you. At this point, it depends on what state you're in, since sometimes a little bit of negligence (in Alabama, Maryland, North Carolina, and Virginia) means that you may get nothing. However, negligence hinges on an assessment of the actions and intentions of a party, and what you describe isn't "neglect", there is the direct intent that the car be stolen. Insurance policies exclude coverage for intentional loss. So the bottom line would be that the person would be out a car, and could be in prison for fraud if they did not reveal what they actually did. One should assume that the thieves took a lulz video of the sign before they stole the car, and posted it on FaceTube where it entered the viral hall of fame and was used against you in a court of law, so fraud is the worst choice. An alternative if you have a car is to donate it to charity, and take a tax write-off.
So-called AI software does not enjoy a special legal status (at present: one never knows what new law might be added). The question of whether any software can be distributed "safely" or "responsibly" is also not a legal issue. Nor is "true sentience" a relevant consideration, and nothing is guaranteed. When you distribute software of any kind, there is an implied warranty that the product is "fit", and if software kills you, you may be able to sue the creator for negligence. A software creator may then want to disclaim liability, by saying "WARNING: THIS PROGRAM MAY KILL YOU. OCP IS NOT LIABLE FOR ANY INJURIES ARISING FROM USE OF THIS PRODUCT". This may or may not actually remove liability. In the UK "liability for negligence occasioning death or personal injury cannot be excluded", so such a disclaimer will not prevent a suit against the manufacturer. In the US, the issue is determined at the level of the state – here is a summary of the law in the states. Probably the primary question would be whether such a disclaimer is an unconscionable term, and the second question is whether the act constituted gross negligence (not simply "negligence"). Mississippi exceptionally does not allow disclaimers, but even then, it does allow disclaiming liability when it comes to computer hardware and software. A software disclaimer is not inherently unconscionable, though perhaps some specific disclaimer would be found to be. Courts typically disfavor disclaimers in the case of gross negligence, and again determining what constitutes "gross negligence" is determined on a state by state basis. If the act shows "reckless indifference to the rights of others" and "failure to use even slight care or conduct that is so careless as to show com­plete disregard for the rights and safety of others", then the act might be grossly negligent.
The law is here (too long to quote, or understand). There is a proposed modification of the law which may be enacted. In the section Justification, it is noted that under the existing law a global corporation may technically &quot;own&quot; five subsidiary corporations. Company A may own a winery in France while Company D may own a hotel containing a restaurant in New York. Under New York Law, the liquor license for the restaurant would be prohibited - and it could be subject to financial penalties. So the restrictions are broader that you mention (ownership of stock is an &quot;interest&quot;), but certainly what you mention is prohibited. The proposed law limits the effect to an interest in a restaurant or brewery &quot;licensed under this chapter&quot;, i.e. in the state of New York (currently, a NY manufacturer cannot have an interest in an alcohol-selling restaurant anywhere).
For your example of items with Marvel characters on them for sale by people and companies not licensed by Marvel, Redbubble clearly states that We ask, rather we beg, that you remember this when you are posting work on Redbubble. If you make sure that all the works you upload consist of your very own, original ideas and are not infringing on the intellectual property or publicity rights of another... (from https://help.redbubble.com/hc/en-us/articles/201579195 ) and further, Redbubble has full contact information for the submission of Notice and Takedown Reports by each real trademark owner. There are many individuals who upload products which use unlicensed artwork in violation of trademarks, and Redbubble acknowledges this and gives recourse to the license holder to inform them so they can remove the items. It's not a perfect system, but Redbubble it seems makes every effort to help police their market. ( Teepublic has a very clear policy statement, too: https://www.teepublic.com/copyright-policy ) Many companies - such as Marvel - employ agents to regularly check such websites and issue takedown demands to the sites; the sites in turn remove the products, and in some instances, ban the individual from using the site again. In the case of Amazon, there can be two types of products sold that use trademarked artwork and characters: items sold by legitimate businesses that have license agreements with the trademark owners and who have the products sold by Amazon itself; and items sold on the Amazon marketplace by individuals who open Amazon Marketplace accounts themselves and don't have licenses. Amazon will be sure to check the products they sell; they will have a takedown notices system for their marketplace vendors. eBay is somewhat the same way; there is a mix of individuals and businesses on eBay, but eBay doesn't operate an umbrella sell/ship by eBay, like Amazon. It's kind of a whack-a-mole situation on the Interwebs. How much time/money does a company spend to chase down trademark infringement? Is it worth going to court for persistent violators? (These are, for the most part, civil cases, not criminal). Violators can always open a new account on sites such as Redbubble and eBay under a different name. And it starts all over again.
The US does not provide copyright protection for font design. As long as you dont distribute font generating programs, that would themselves be copyrighted, you are not infringing. Your derived information is okay because it is derived from a non-copyrightable work and is therefore not a derivative work. https://law.stackexchange.com/a/25673/1340
Intentional sabotage of a TSA computer system is almost certainly a serious crime and would also almost surely give rise to civil liability, although you might avoid both if you warned the TSA that the phone was set up to intentionally break their system, in which case it might be confiscated as contraband. If the product had a "feature" unknown to you and that you had no reasonable reason to know of that caused the harm, you would ultimately have no criminal or civil liability, although the manufacturer might be strictly liable to the TSA under a product liability theory, and you would probably be detained as a witness to figure out what happened. If the product had a "feature" that broke the TSA computer that could be de-activated and that you meant to de-active but carelessly failed to, you would have negligence liability to the government and might or might not have criminal liability (I'm not enough of an expert in the relevant statutes to know). You might be liable for a strict liability Federal Communications Commission offense for having a device that is in violation of their regulations.
Yes, if you do not use the trademarked name. In the U.S. the graphical shape of fonts are not protected by copyright. See 37 CRF section 202.1 Typefaces are specifically excluded. Excluded are under (a) &quot;mere variations of typographic ornamentation,&quot; and (e) &quot;Typeface as typeface.&quot; The computer code that a font/typeface program uses to produce the shapes can be copyright. Importantly, fonts are protected by their trademarked names.