Protecting Your App Icon
Mobile phone applications, or “apps” as they are commonly known, have become increasingly important for businesses, with millions of apps on both the Apple App Store and Google Play Store. Creating a distinct and eye-grabbing app icon can help users to quickly identify your app on their device. You can and should consider protecting your app icon through trademark registration, copyright registration, and trade dress protection.
Trademark Protection for App Icons
A trademark identifies a single source of origin for goods or services and serves to distinguish the owner’s goods or serves from those of another. Trademarks can be a word, name, symbol, color, or sound (or any combination thereof). Thus, an app icon (if created properly) can serve as a trademark!
A federally registered trademark provides many benefits such as a presumption of ownership in the trademark and its validity, and the exclusive right to use the trademark in commerce nationwide. With this right, no one else in the USA can use the trademark in commerce without the owner’s consent.
For an App icon to obtain federal trademark registration in the USA, it must: (1) be used in interstate commerce; (2) not create a likelihood of confusion with an already existing trademark; and (3) be distinctive. As apps are typically used nationally or globally, showing use in interstate commerce usually isn’t an issue, and it is important to have a search conducted to make sure that there isn’t an already existing logo or icon similar to the app icon.
The Distinctiveness component is probably the most important for an app icon. Distinctiveness is the ability of the trademark to identify the single source of goods or services. Distinctiveness is measured on a spectrum, so the applicant will want to make sure that the app icon is highly distinctive. One can accomplish this by using unique or original color combinations and by using an app icon that is unrelated to the company’s offerings. A good example of this is Reddit’s alien app icon..
Copyright Protection for App Icons
In addition to (or as an alternative to) registering the trademark, an app icon may also be protected by copyright in the USA as a graphic element or as an artistic work. Registering copyright is low cost and provides protection against a third party literally copying and using the app icon. Unlike trademark protection, copyright protection is limited to copying the icon itself and doesn’t protect against confusingly similar app icons. However, in come cases, copyright provides more efficient and cost effective methods of enforcement.
Trade Dress Protection for App Icons
Trade dress is a subset of trademark rights that protects any distinctive element or combination of elements of a product or service. The main categories of trade dress include the product packaging, product design, color, business interiors and exteriors, and sounds and scents. Thus, for apps, it protects their look and feel. As with trademarks, one can apply for protection of its goods or services’ elements with the USPTO which affords the owner more intellectual property rights. In order to be protectable under the Lanham Act, the trade dress must be both distinctive (in the same sense we used the word above) and non-functional. However, even if a business hasn’t applied for protection with the USPTO for its trade dress, it may still have a trade dress infringement lawsuit of it can describe the specific elements that comprise the trade dress and identify how the elements combine to constitute the trade dress.