| Re: [ee4j-pmc] Design Contest: Replacement for Duke Mascot |
I think there is a misunderstanding. What Oracle trademarked is a *graphic representation* showing the mascot named Duke in one particular 2D pose. They did not trademarked the mascot itself (but certainly would claim to have done so). This is a huge difference: You can trademark a logo showing *one specific* turtle, and you might be able to trademark *one special shaped* turtle, but you cannot trademark the animal family "turtles" *in general*. But one can choose the animal family "turtles" as a mascot. So yes, some mascots and in particular their graphic representation can be trademarked, but this does not imply that all mascots can be trademarked. On the other hand, all graphics can be trademarked, independend of whether they show mascots or not. -Markus From: ee4j-pmc-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ee4j-pmc-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Mike Milinkovich On 2018-05-10 12:37 PM, Markus KARG wrote: A mascot is not a logo. It is much moreabstract design concept. For example, if we vote for "The mascot is theanimal: 'turtle'" then ANY incarnation of a "turtle" (a living turtle, a pendraft, a 2D logo, a 3D logo, a lego-build turtle, a turle-shaped fancydress, a plush toy, etc.) would be all possible representations of ourmascot (fully intended, btw). Hence, there cannot be anything like"trademark registration" nor "design rules" as both are IMHO only applicableto specific *representations* but not *abstract design concepts*. I double-checked, and confirmed that Duke is, in fact, a registered trademark. So at least Sun Microsystems thought that mascots could be trademarked :) Here is the trademark record from the USPTO database.
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