Thursday, June 13, 2013

Can We Use Famous Person's Name in Documentary Title?

Dear Rich: Can you use the name of a famous person for documentary title, and how do you trademark the documentary? Assuming that your documentary has something to do with the famous person, you can use the person's name in the title. As we mentioned in a recent entry, a celebrity's right of publicity doesn't extend to communicative/informational uses such as documentaries or news articles.
Trademark rights. We think you mean "How do we register the name of our documentary as a trademark?" The answer is that you cannot federally register a single title for a book, documentary or fiction film as we discussed in a previous entry.

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