[sebbie]

Copyright law extends to unique things like logos and unique symbols associated with a particular company or organization, but generally you cannot copyright things that would be regarded as generic, such as design or color. We run into the same issues with College logos. University of Kentucky colors are blue and white. I could make tee shirts that use the blue and white colors and sell them with no issues at all. If I were to write Wildcats, the team mascot across the front I would be in copyright trouble. If I were to write just cats across the front, that would depend on whether the college has copyrighted the word cats as a logo. Getting an official copyright on the word cats is much more difficult to do than to get a copyright on Wildcats, but possibly could be done. However, other lawyers would say the mascot is the Wildcat not just any old cat. I'm not certain what the status of cats is under current copyright law. But I could write things like Cat FAN on the shirt with no copyright concerns at all, and I could sell red and black shirsts that say cats on the front with no copyright issues. Maybe cats is copyrighted but only if blue and white in combination. Otherwise the Arizona Wildcats would be a copyright violation of the Kentucky Wildcats, or vice versa. Vendors are constantly testing the limits on this.

We have an HVAC company that uses blue and white colors and calls themselves the K.A.T.S. I suspect they chose that name because they checked and K.A.T.S. using a K was not copyrighted by the university. They advertize with phrases like the "K.A.T.S. are the best" and everyone gets the connection. They MIGHT also make a donatoin to the athletic program as a matter of good faith but that would be optional.

Universities pay attention to copyright law in part because merchandise with logos on is a major source of revenue for supporting athletics as well as other university programs.

If you have a suit made that simply uses the colors employed in the 2012 Olympics, even in the locations they were used on the official suit, that would not violate copyright law as color combinations as such generally are not subject to copyright. If you wanted to come up with a logo that looked like a copyrighted 2012 olympic logo on the suit you would be in trouble or If you wanted to use something close to a corporate logo, the Nike swoosh, or even the Adidas triple-stripe, you probably would be in trouble as these are copyrighted logos. Adidas has a triangular logo, but apparently they have also managed to copyright 3 stripes as a separate logo. Occasionally I will see shoes that do a variation of the three stripe logo, say 4 stripes, and that is no violation of copyright law. The Olympics worries a lot about copyright because again, the logo merchandise is a major source of royalty revenue for funding Olympic programs.

The Chinese are very brand/logo focused, in particular they like brands popular in the US, and are always testing the limits on all this. US copyright law generally does not apply and is not enforced in China, and companies are free to sell in China logo merchandise copyrighted in the US to the Chinese. They get into copyright law trouble when they try to sell this merchandise through US vendors. Some of these "copies" may be very good quality, and perhaps even made in the same factory used by the real company. One of the disputes the US government has with China is the fact that they often pay no attention to US copyright law.

The Aqux brand is copyrighted in Japan. At least until recently, I gether the paperwork has never been filed to copyright the brand in the US because they are not selling their product through US vendors. China generally is the wild west in terms of copyright law. I can import an Aqux branded suit direct from China and since the brand is not copyrighted in the US or in China there is no copyright violation. If I tried to do this in Japan there are legal issues. The factory used to manufacture the suit might be the same or very similar to the one the Japanese Aqux uses to manufacture the suits for sale in Japan. Who knows?. If The Japanese Aqux wants to keep this from happening, they need to copyright the brand and then make it available through US vendors, but getting this set up costs money and they would need to have some clear reason to believe that they could sell skimpy, low-slung and fairly-expensive suits to Americans in large quantities.