Trademark or Copyright – Which is correct for a website design

Safeguard Your Website Design

A business website remains as a treasured asset for customer service, sales, and marketing. It is important to safeguard the website as you safeguard your property. It is possible to protect the website by copyrighting. It involves a few steps which you can perform with the help of experts in this industry.

The business website is an intellectual asset just like the patent or trademark. It is necessary to safeguard your domain name and also the images on the website like business images, business logo, etc. by getting the trademark registered.

A website consists of a group of the inter-associated web page that includes home page situated on the server or the same computer, prepared and taken care as a pool of information by an organization, group or person.

Know more about, Copyright protection is given for original efforts associated with a physical means of expression. If the website is qualified, it means the work is original and it is solely possessed by the applicant. The copyright protection for a particular website is mainly given for the images, graphics, and content present on the website.  The content or the materials remains noticeable to the users of that particular website.

The materials cover everything from the literature, news articles, music, blogs, audio like the podcast, games, webinars, and video. It is possible to copyright what is present on the website. If any content is created or the website is updated, then it requires new or own registration.

What cannot be copyrighted?

It is not possible to copyright the links that are connected to another website. It is possible to copyright internal links within your site but you cannot copyright the links of the website that are owned by other members.

It is not possible to copyright the website which is on the public domain. It is because it is not owned by any person.

The user-generated contents are added by users on the website. It includes reviews and comments. Such contents belong to the users and it is not possible to own their contents.

It is not possible to own ideas like functional design elements or plans for forthcoming websites. You cannot copyright the layout, format, hypertext links, domain names, or looks and appearance of the website.

Unoriginal and common material like the icons, names, or well-known symbols is not meant for copyright.

What is meant by Trademark?

Trademarks apply to names, words, sounds, symbols or colors which distinguish services and goods from those sold or manufactured by others and specify the basis of the goods.

If you wish to safeguard your business logo or your website name, you need to use a trademark.

• Trademarks that are registered cannot be used without the owner’s permission. It is necessary to safeguard the valuable things about your company with trademarks.
• It is possible to get a trademark for any items which differentiate services or goods sold by the company.
• For example, trademark cover colors, symbols, wordmarks, jingles, company names and much more.
• It is not possible to trademark personal names unless it is widely unique and recognized such as Ford or Cabela’s.

Why do you need to copyright your website?

Trademarks and copyrights help once you have developed a business with value or generated a following. By this way, no one can make a duplicate copy with your logo or name or anything that looks or remains similar.

It is not necessary for all the websites to get a copyright. There are hundreds and thousands of bloggers who do not even bother to think about copyright or trademark. As a business or bloggers, if you are serious, you can perform proper trademarks and copyrights procedure so as to safeguard against copycats.

In simple terms, copyrights are helpful for safeguarding articles and blogs. It also applies to photographs. If you wish to restrict other people from utilizing your business logo and name, you need to make use of the trademark for a complete defense.

How to register for copyright?

If you want to get your website registered for copyright, you need to visit the copyright registration website. You will be asked to pay a certain sum and submit your blogs or articles or other content you wish to be protected. Several bloggers perform this process once to twice in a year.