Hold it, time out. I think you missed Jim's point. It's extremely unlikely you can claim a copyright in a two word phrase--in fact, I'd be surprised to hear of any case where that has succeeded. If you're thinking of protecting the design on the bands as a whole with the words as part of the design, that's another matter. But copyright sounds like the wrong area of IP if your main concern is the two words.
Let me give you a couple of "furrinstances":
1) Suppose you saw someone else use those two words in that order in a magazine. Would you want to try to stop them (with a claim of copyright infringement, assuming you could)? I'm thinking probably not.
2) By contrast, suppose you saw someone use a phrase that meant the same thing as yours, or sounded or looked like yours, and they were putting the phrase on a wrist band, like you do. Would you be OK with that because they hadn't actually copied your two word phrase? Or would you want to stop them because people might think their bands were your bands and some of your business would be diverted away?
The first situation concerns copyright. The second sounds more like trademark.
The good thing about trademarks in the US is that not only do you not need to register them for them to exist, but they can last forever provided you keep using them. To have a trademark, all you have to do is use a phrase or logo as a way of marking your product so that people know the product comes from a single source, and sell the marked products in a market where you don't infringe on anyone else's trademark. Registration gets you broader rights, but the trademark exists by virtue of its use. (For federal registration you need to use the mark in interstate commerce--so there's federal jurisdiction, natch.)
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Topic: Re: Getting protection for a new design. (Read 771 times)
