Design theft?

[Eagle]

*
Interesting revelations on a certain "logo design company" over at HOWDesign.com...

Business startups beware: you get what you pay for.

http://www.howdesign.com/forum/messages.asp?topicID=301499

[VeryMark]

Just to add my four penn'orth, anybody using an instant logo factory, stock photos, or clipart to produce their logo is taking a significant risk.

This is because, whilst the result might be cheap and without risk of copyright infringement (hopefully):-

(a) You won't have the copyright either to protect yourself against someone else.

(b) If you register it as your trade mark, the validity of your registration might be subject to challenge (see the Oscar case).

(c) There is a chance that someone else in the same field as you might do the same thing and adopt a similar design as a result - I saw two plumbing firms recently with different names but identical business card designs.

So it makes good sense legally and commercially to get an original design from a reputable source like Eagle.

[epiphany]

Here is another example of three companies using the same thing Eagle...

http://www.artworkers.org/
http://www.quark.com/
http://www.scottisharts.org.uk/

[Ozzy]

Wonderful ! Don't you love individuality ;)
One of the first things I did was get my logo designed then trademarked when I started. You just never know when your company could become multinational :D