Does the name have a common image or mental picture that arouses instantaneous recognition? What or who decides. In 1985, in East Berlin in Alexander Platz, a book store would have no problems selling copywrite material, designer jeans, or boxes of labels to sign onto designer t-shirts, for instant status because individual property did not exist, and I could buy a pair of "fake" designer 501's for a few DDR marks at a street vendor. Teens flock behind me like carrion eater from Edith Hamilton's "Greek Mythology" that recorded the Furies.
What belongs to a public domain is intellectual property or a trademark name; we refer to xeroxing a page, and legally. we have used a trade marked item---xerox is property; so we say photocopy; Joan Crawford said Pepsi--not Coke or Coca Cola. What is in a name? You cannot use a Disney name unless the copywrite has expired. Now we can use one the old comics of Mickey Mouse if the name was in the 1920s.
Anita W.
01/20/25