Legal Question in Intellectual Property in Illinois

Re: copyrighting a foreign language term in the states

You would need more than just the word. I can explain all this to you in about 30 minutes.

Re: copyrighting a foreign language term in the states

Although your question is somewhat confusing, I believe what you want to do is trademark (not copyright) a foreign word for your organization. There is nothing in United States trademark law which prohibits this per se. It is very common. Of course, you would not have rights to the foreign word if someone else (or a company) already has rights to it....for example, a company might already have rights to the French word for "happy" in connection with the sale of watches...if this were true then you might be infringing upon their rights if you tried to use that term in connection with similar items. There are many other considerations, such as if the term is descriptive, which may effect your right to trademark protection.

if you are talking about a photo, contents of a book, poem, song, etc...then you are talking about copyright law.

Re: copyrighting a foreign language term in the states

Although your question is somewhat confusing, I believe what you want to do is trademark (not copyright) a foreign word for your organization. There is nothing in United States trademark law which prohibits this per se. It is very common. Of course, you would not have rights to the foreign word if someone else (or a company) already has rights to it....for example, a company might already have rights to the French word for "happy" in connection with the sale of watches...if this were true then you might be infringing upon their rights if you tried to use that term in connection with similar items. There are many other considerations, such as if the term is descriptive, which may effect your right to trademark protection.

if you are talking about a photo, contents of a book, poem, song, etc...then you are talking about copyright law.