Supreme Court Image Trademark-Protected

The supervisor of the Canadian law blog The Court is reporting the editors felt it was necessary to change their logo because the original image of the Supreme Court of Canada building they had been using in their header was covered by trademark.

"It turns out that the sketch we made from a photograph we made produces nevertheless an image trademarked by the Supreme Court, and so we were required to take ours down (...) The Trade-Marks Journal, Vol. 44, p.163 (August 13, 1997) contains four images tradmarked by the SCC".

"It’s unclear from this whether any photograph or drawing of the building, recognizable as the Supreme Court, would be considered to fall under these trademarks. Rather than flirt with that possibility — one takedown message from the Supreme Court of Canada is... interesting; two would be unfortunate — The Court simply moved to a more neutral, shall we say subtle, icon. We hope it serves".

It is indeed a very nice-looking and elegant new logo.