Hello,
Two other women and I are starting a nonprofit organization dedicated to global peace. A large part of our endeavors will be around a new SYMBOL that one of my partners has developed. We will use this symbol as part of our logo, but we also want this symbol to be freely shared, with people being able to use it for commercial purposes only with permission. This symbol is one that could potentially be "universal" in the sense that symbols like the peace sign, the Christian fish, etc., are known throughout the world and understood. We think it is that important.
I realize that a CC license can give us the "protection" we want of being attributed and having some control over its commercial use. But we are struggling with the issue of whether or not we should trademark this symbol.
From what I have read, the spirit of what we want to do with this symbol can be served by applying a CC license. But one of us is strongly in favor of trademarking. None of us has a legal background or experience in these issues. The one who is in favor of trademarking has heard from several other people who she has questioned about it, who all say that we should trademark our symbol. But I have countered with the argument that not that many people even KNOW about Creative Commons.
So I know that a CC license has nothing to do with trademarking. The question is, if our goal is to "protect" the symbol, which WILL be our logo but which we also want to have freely available for others to use, and if we want it to be ASSOCIATED with our organization, with its commercial use by anyone other than us being possible only with our permission, then is one of the CC licenses going to do this for us?
Or is this something that we SHOULD trademark?
Bear in mind that it is our strong desire to NOT have to put a TM or circle-R on our symbol. So if this is something that we SHOULD trademark, must we include those symbols on OUR symbol? Or can we trademark without showing those symbols?
Thank you for any and all replies!
