Snubbed American Airlines Logo to Get Another Copyright Review
Snubbed American Airlines Logo to Get Another Copyright Review
(Bloomberg) -- American Airlines raised a stink over the U.S. government’s refusal to give its logo copyright protection -- and that may get results.
The U.S. Copyright Office has repeatedly deemed the airline’s flight symbol to be lacking in creativity, finally prompting the company to sue the head of the agency a month ago. A spokesman for the carrier said Friday that the lawsuit has been dropped because the copyright application is now getting another review.
The logo was introduced in 2013 amid a major rebranding by the company. It depicts an abstract white eagle’s head poking through a diagonal band with blue on top and red on the bottom. It was twice denied copyright protection and rejected a third time earlier this year when the airline sought reconsideration.
In its suit in Fort Worth, Texas, the airline accused the copyright agency of abusing its discretion, saying it routinely registers copyrights that are no more, “and in many cases less,” creative than American’s logo.
The agency declined to comment on the dismissal of the suit.
The case is American Airlines Inc. v. Temple, 4:18-cv-843, U.S. District Court, Northern District of Texas (Fort Worth).
To contact the reporter on this story: Tom Korosec in Dallas at tkorosec@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Elizabeth Wollman at ewollman@bloomberg.net, Peter Blumberg, Steve Stroth
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