Quote Originally Posted by M. A. C. Newsome View Post
However, the big irony is that the tartan LL Bean used was the original Maine tartan. Had they selected the Maine Dirigo tartan, which is actually the official state tartan, they would not have had to deal with these pesky copyright issues.
The problem is that unless they defended their copyright against its use by LL Bean they would effectively yield their rights to the pattern to LL. Bean. Copyrights are not patents. Worse still: even public patterns can be made proprietary merely by their association with a brand. I refer the readers here to look at Burberry's threats against the mills making Thompson Camel tartans (and companies using the cloth). Their lawyers have argued that it does not matter that Thompson Camel predates the company or its use but that its come to be a logo identified with Burberry. I refer also to the Sony-versus-Sony and other similar suits. Should LL Bean continue to use the tartan without agreement with the copyright holders and they did nothing then LL Bean could eventually argue that they own "effectively" the tartan and could, in theory, move to prevent the current copyright holders from using it. Twisted world!