Legal Question in Product Liability in Texas

Re: to copyright a product and a logo used

You would need to apply for a trademark.

Re: to copyright a product and a logo used

You may be able to trademark the logo and name of your product. First, you need to determine whether you can have exclusive rights to use the name/logo AND whether or not your use infringes upon anyone else's exclusive rights. This is a very important first step because you don't want to invest your resources in using a name that you may later have to change because it infringes someone else's rights (unknown to you at the time you chose the name). This determination can be done by a trademark search. I recommend that you hire an attorney to perform the search and to evaluate the search results. It requires one with experience and knowledge of the trademark laws to evaluate search results and make a recommendation. If you can own exclusive rights to your name/logo, then you (or your attorney) can apply for a trademark. See www.uspto.gov for more details of the trademark process.

If there are unique, artistic elements to the design of your candles (such as, they are carved in a unique way, they are like sculptures) you may explore applying for copyright and/or design patent protection. Copyrights protect artistic works (such as sculpture), and design patents protect unique, ornamental aspects of a design. You can read about copyrights at www.copyright.gov and design patents at www.uspto.gov.

While you can apply for each of these intellectual property rights yourself, I strongly recommend that you retain an attorney to help you. As with so many things, it is so much easier and less expensive to do things right from the beginning rather than try to fix it after mistakes have been made. An attorney will ensure your rights are best protected from the beginning.

Best of luck,

Sarah

P.S. This question should be in the "intellectual property" catagory (or maybe "business") but not "product liability".