Hi,
I have been designing a game for a long time now and had the greatest idea to add cars to the game. I was wondering whether it would be illegal to use defunct car manufacturers in the game.
Please help ASAP!
Copyright of defunct companies!
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ethanemery007
- New Member
- Posts: 1
- Joined: Sat Jul 20, 2013 6:08 pm
Well, taking the words of your title, there is no copyright in company names, defunct ot otherwise.
The form of intellectual property most likely to be involved would be that of trade marks, but since your use of company names within a game could hardly lead to confusion in the minds of the buying public that you were selling cars, I don't think you need to worry about this. Furthermore, to remain valid, trade marks need to have been in use in the preceeding five years, so if you wanted to use names such as Singer or Humber, there is no chance of a valid challenge, but if the companies had a more recent existence you could check if there were any current registered trade marks by using the IPO online search tool.
The form of intellectual property most likely to be involved would be that of trade marks, but since your use of company names within a game could hardly lead to confusion in the minds of the buying public that you were selling cars, I don't think you need to worry about this. Furthermore, to remain valid, trade marks need to have been in use in the preceeding five years, so if you wanted to use names such as Singer or Humber, there is no chance of a valid challenge, but if the companies had a more recent existence you could check if there were any current registered trade marks by using the IPO online search tool.
Advice or comment provided here is not and does not purport to be legal advice as defined by s.12 of Legal Services Act 2007