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Protection of Cartoon Characters under Intellectual Property Law Regime: An Analysis of Copyright and Trademark Laws

2007; RELX Group (Netherlands); Linguagem: Inglês

1556-5068

Dharmveer Singh Krishnawat,

Intellectual Property Law

Fictional characters are at the center of a multibillion-dollar industry, a fact that offers strong motivation for authors to fight to preserve their monopoly in any way they can. Usually copyright law protects a fictional character within the context of the work in which the character appears. In these cases, infringement is found if the alleged infringer had access to the copyrighted work and there is substantial similarity between the copyrighted work and the allegedly infringing work. The issue of separate protection for literary characters arises when the character is removed from the original work, so that the character leads a new and independent life in a separately written piece. Characters that are capable of leading independent lives are those who are especially memorable, such that they stay in a reader's imagination long after the original storyline is forgotten. An author seeking to write a new adventure for Superman, Tarzan, or Sherlock Holmes, must be aware of the legal considerations involved. Literary characters are protected within the copyright of the original work in which they appear, but the law is less clear when a character is separated from the original work and leads an independent life. Therefore, a new approach has to be derived where both the Copyright Laws as well as the Trademark Laws should go side by side.