Trademarking work

[cheshire]

Anybody here ever had to trademark something? I read somewhere that you can mail yourself the artwork registered mail so it has a postmark, but that seems way too simple.

[doggydoodle]

poor man's copyright. pay to have it done correctly.

[apelley]

Trademark and copyright are very different and both require jumping through different legal hoops. Presuming you are trying to protect art work and not a logo you are probably wanting a copyright (ths is also the process where you can mail it to yourself).
As noted above this is called the poor mans copyright and not a very strong way to protect your work. I agree with the above...go through the process and pay the few dollars to get some solid protection.

[slidingpast]

it's not hard to do at all.
never pay anyone to provide you with copyright forms because they're free, and you can download them.
the only fee is for the filing, and only to the copyright office.

http://www.copyright.gov/

[cheshire]

Great. Thanks for the info guys.

[Onna Point Research]

Registration is Protection. Although all work is copyrighted at the moment of creation, not all work is protected equally. If your registered work is later infringed, you can recover actual damages (the fee that would normally have been paid for the use), as well as Statutory (Punitive) Damages and legal fees. A work that is infringed and has not been registered, can only generate the Actual Damages. This means that, in most cases, the cost of the suit will far exceeds the money you could recover. Copyright Registration provides benefits for at least the next 70 years. Registration also protects you against more than a sneaky third party using your image surreptitiously. If a client refuses to pay for images that they have used, a proper registration is perhaps your most important tool to enforce compliance with your contractual terms. (Contracts are another topic).

Fill out the copyright form and submit your art on CD ROM, print a copy of the art, or both. If you submit on CD-ROM, you should include a laser copy or Xerox of the art because CD-ROM longevity is unknown. Use a High grade CD-R disk that has a fairly thick lacquer overcoat on their top surface. This coating acts to protect the thin, fragile organic dye layer that is actually the data storage substrate of the CD-R. Again, many cheap CD-R disks (no-name bulk disks) often have essentially no protective overcoat and the slightest scratch, scuff or felt pen bleed through the top of the disk can cause problems or even render the disk unreadable. Many people don't realize that the organic dye data layer that is written to by the CD burner in actually on the top of the CD and not embedded within the plastic. This is why disks without a thick clear-coat are so easily damaged.