[Dr. Mindshadow]

I'm asking this question because Single Series is or least was owned United Features. Sparkman seems to be one of the more interesting characters that no one has really done anything with despite the fact that they contained interesting story telling elements that would make for interesting reading. However I made some point make another topic in another forum for that. 

[narfstar]

I would be really surprised if Sparkman was renewed. The trademark will surely have expired so the character can be used regardless.

[Roygbiv666]

I believe so, check out his entry at Public Domain Super-Heroes: http://pdsh.wikia.com/wiki/Sparkman

He first appeared in Sparkler Comics II #1 (July 1940), published by United Features.

[crimsoncrusader]

Sparkman is going to be used by Alex Ross in Project Superpowers and has already been featured as a character sketch in the first volume. Plus, his comics were not renewed. This is another site to check out http://www.geocities.com/cash_gorman/copyright1.html

[John C]

The best way to check copyright renewal status (for older comics) is the Catalog of Copyright Entries.  I can't get a URL for you on this machine, but any search engine will turn up the scans as the first result.

Find the year of publication and add twenty-eight.  That's the year the owner should have renewed the book.  Pull up the page of that year's CCE scans.  For comics, skip down until you find the periodicals, and it's sorted alphabetically.

Check the page or pages (sometimes there are early year/late year entries), and also check the year prior and year after, just in case.  If you don't find anything, the comic has probably passed into the public domain.  And you'll notice that Single Series (or any likely variant title) is nowhere to be found.

(For other issues in the series, it's tricker, because they sound like strip reprints, which is an entirely different ball of wax.)

But above all, make sure you've done that research yourself (orsit down with an IP lawyer), rather than relying on random amateurs on the Internet.  A discussion like this is a good starting point, but "a bunch of anonymous people and a guy named John on the Internet said it was OK" isn't going to go very far in the event of a lawsuit.

[narfstar]

My understanding from these discusions and the difference between copyright and trademark would put Sparkman trade dress as unprotected. He has not been featured anywhere for decades so the trade dress apparance of the character would be trademark free even if the stories were copyright. Am I correct?

[John C]

Yes and no.  You're right in that there wouldn't be a trademark problem, but if the character's first appearance (for example) still had a valid copyright, then your picture would be derivative of, and thus infringing on, it.  The difference between the two is that the owner is allowed to ignore you in the latter and retain copyright, but must defend his own trademark to keep it.

Art always seems to confuse people, so let me try a text-based example where the rules are probably clearer:  Star Trek has been out of the public eye for a while, now, if we ignore the recent movie for the purposes of an otherwise-valid example.  It's been especially long since they've sold anything (excepting the movie) with the "final frontier" monologue, and so that as a franchise trademark might have otherwise elapsed.

However, if your company were to recite it/print it as the voyages of the USS Narfstar, that would be messing around with Paramount's copyright and their lawyers would find you very interesting.

A more technically correct example, if less evocative, would be something like the Casablanca "hill of beans" speech.  Somebody owns it, even if the owner hasn't really used it to sell anything in a long while.