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| Our 2018-2019 Honey Label |
Lessons learned...
When we started harvesting enough honey to sell, hubby went online and found several honey bee clip art pics. (He's the artistic one.) We selected a really cute little bee, similar to the one at the top of this post. We signed labels and printed them from
www.Avery.com. Life was good!
While on Instagram
BeekeeperDonna, I saw a post for a logo contest from NASCAR. The contest would have multiple winners and each winner would have her/his logo on a race car during a race. It was a free contest and sounded like a good idea, so I submitted our logo into the contest. Believe it or not, our logo was selected! The official paperwork was sent through email and a certification for permission to use the logo was required. Again, we found the logo in clipart online, but had not paid for it. Before signing the official paperwork, I decided to check the
US Patent and Trademark Office website to make sure the logo did not have a copyright or trademark. The logo didn't have ™ or ©, so I thought I was "good to go". Nope. It turns out that the artist that created the little lady bee had a copyright for her. A small ladies boutique had rights to the logo.
I called the boutique and spoke to one of the owners to ask for permission to use our adapted, colorized version of the logo and I offered to pay a fee to use the logo. Two sisters own the boutique and the sister that answered the phone said that it should be fine, but that her niece, the other owner's daughter, had drawn the logo. (You know where I'm going with this story, right?) After multiple phone calls, we were not given permission to use the logo. So, we purchased the new little bee lady in the logo above and hubby colorized and modified her. We now have permission to use her on any of our labels, business cards, etc.
And, as for the NASCAR contest, well, I never returned the paperwork and bowed out of the contest.
The moral of this story is to
always check the patent and trademark office before using someone else's intellectual property.
