Copyright v. Trademark v. Patent

“The Sleeping Virtue” by MissNickiPink

To Be in Copyright or Not To Be in Copyright. . . That is the Question.

Here in China, I’m currently teaching my darling students Business Law, which includes a healthy dose of Art and Cultural Heritage law surprisingly enough.  Although, if you think about it, Businesses deal in Art and Words as much as anyone–and I’ve discovered the rules for them are often similar to those for individual artists.  

But one of the most basic questions my students get stumped with is what is the different between a copyright, trademark, and patent?

Lawyers like to throw around those words like they mean something, but it’s a big pile of nothing for anyone else.  Still, many of your rights and protections are caught up in the relevant Copyright, Trademark, or Patent. So if you want to adequately protect yourself (in business or in art), you need to know which one you need.  

As I help my students, I thought I would share some information here as well.  I’m teaching basic overview of the law, so this is all simple information 🙂  Please Note: This is not intended to be Legal Advice! Every situation is different, and if you have a situation you need to speak with your own Attorney!

Original Art ~ Diamond Fashion

Diamond Fashion by Dreamhuntress-sims

Dazzling jewels from an Ethiopian grave reveal 2,000-year-old link to Rome

by Dalya Alberge via “The Guardian“

British archaeology team uncovers stunning Aksumite and Roman artefacts

The grave in Ethiopia where the woman dubbed ‘Sleeping Beauty’ was discovered. Photograph: Graeme Laidlaw

Spectacular 2,000-year-old treasures from the Roman empire and the Aksumite kingdom, which ruled parts of north-east Africa for several centuries before 940AD, have been discovered by British archaeologists in northern Ethiopia.

Louise Schofield, a former British Museum curator, headed a major six-week excavation of the ancient city of Aksum where her team of 11 uncovered graves with “extraordinary” artefacts dating from the first and second centuries. They offer evidence that the Romans were trading there hundreds of years earlier than previously thought.

Schofield told the Observer: “Every day we had shed-loads of treasure coming out of all the graves. I was blown away: I’d been confident we’d find something, but not on this scale.”

She was particularly excited about the grave of a woman she has named “Sleeping Beauty”. The way the body and its grave goods had been positioned suggest that she had been beautiful and much-loved.

Perfume flask found at the site.

Schofield said: “She was curled up on her side, with her chin resting on her hand, wearing a beautiful bronze ring. She was buried gazing into an extraordinary Roman bronze mirror. She had next to her a beautiful and incredibly ornate bronze cosmetics spoon with a lump of kohl eyeliner.”

The woman was also wearing a necklace of thousands of tiny beads, and a beaded belt. The quality of the jewellery suggests that she was a person of very high status, able to command the very best luxurious goods. Other artefacts with her include Roman glass vessels – two perfectly preserved drinking beakers and a flask to catch the tears of the dead.

There was also a clay jug. Schofield hopes that its contents can be analysed. She believes it would have contained food and drink for the afterlife.

Although “Sleeping Beauty” was covered only with soil, her grave was cut into a rock overhang, which is why the finds survived intact.

The team also found buried warriors, with each skeleton wearing large iron bangles. They may have been killed in nearby battlefields. . . . .

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Road workers find 1,500-year old church near Jerusalem

by Ruth Schuster via “Haaretz”

The remains of a large Byzantine-era church has been discovered on an even more ancient road at the entrance to Abu Ghosh, a town in the hills just off the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv highway.

The current excavation season uncovered a church measuring about 16 m in length. The church featured a large side chapel, 6.5 by 3.5 meters in area, with a white mosaic stone floor. A baptismal font in the form of a four-leafed clover, symbolizing the cross, was installed in the chapel’s northeast corner, the Israel Antiquities Authority says.

The four-clover leaf shaped baptismal font found in the 1,500-year Byzantine church by Abu Ghosh. Photo by Annette Nagar, courtesy of the Israel Antiquities Authority

Fragments of red-colored plaster found in the rubble strewn throughout the building indicate that the church walls had been decorated with frescoes, the IAA adds. The site had a water source – the ‘Ain Naqa‘a seep spring.

Rooms that may have served as dwelling quarters and storage were uncovered just west of the church.

Among the other finds at the site were oil lamps, coins, glass vessels, marble fragments, and mother-of-pearl shells.

A small oil lamp, seen against the white mosaic floor of the Byzantine church found by Abu Ghosh. Photo by Assaf Peretz, courtesy of the IAA

As are so many archaeological finds in Israel, this one was made by the National Roads Company, in this case while expanding the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem highway. The company is also funding the excavation by the IAA, headed by Annette Nagar.

“The road station and its church were built in the Byzantine period beside the ancient road leading between Jerusalem and the coastal plain,” Nagar said in a statement. . . . .

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