Logo copyright
What is logo copyright?
Logo copyright belongs by default to the person who drew the mark, and an exclusive right to it passes to the client only under an express written contract. Under Bulgarian copyright law a commissioned work stays with its author unless the contract says otherwise, while the client may use it for the purpose it was ordered for. Registering a trade mark is separate protection, granted by an office for named classes of goods and services.
Example
A company orders a mark from a freelance designer by email, with no contract. Three years later it wants the mark on packaging, registered as a trade mark and licensed to a franchise partner. No rights were ever granted in writing: the mark may be used for the purpose it was ordered for, but the new uses and the licence to a third party were never agreed and now depend on the author’s consent.
One paragraph in the contract ends the same story differently: an explicit, exclusive right to use the mark on every carrier, in every territory, with no time limit, including the right to modify it and to sub-license it. The packaging, the registration and the franchise then go ahead without anyone having to go back.
Why it matters for a business
A brand is an asset that gets checked when a company is sold, when a franchise is signed and when a competitor copies the mark. If the paperwork does not show who holds the rights, the negotiation stops there. And when someone does copy the mark, it is the rights holder who can act, not whoever paid the invoice.
Registration is the other half of protecting a logo. An application goes to the Bulgarian Patent Office, or to EUIPO for an EU trade mark; protection covers the classes of goods and services you name and runs in renewable ten-year periods. Copyright protects the drawing, a trade mark protects its use in trade. The filing itself is work for an industrial property representative or a lawyer; we prepare the mark and the files the application needs.
What to ask
- Does the contract grant an exclusive right to use the mark, for all carriers and territories?
- Is a term written in? With none stated, the law reads the grant as three years rather than unlimited.
- Does it include the right to modify the mark and to license it to a partner or franchisee?
- What about elements that were not drawn for you — a licensed typeface, an icon, a stock photograph?
- Do you receive the source files, not only exported pictures?
Who gets what is settled in the contract before logo design starts. This page explains the idea; a lawyer should read the wording of your own agreement.