Re: Logos as trademarks

Hi Cynthia

We need some legal input on an issue being discussed in the WAI guidelines
group.  In general, the WAI guidelines require that text be presented in
the HTML source, instead of part of an image.  This lets the user control
the size, font, color, and background of the text, which is important for
people with low vision.

But what if a company has a logo that's a trademark, and that logo has text
in it.

You can present that logo, with the text,

(1) as a single bitmap (or compressed bitmap) image which guarantees it
looks exactly--or almost exactly like the original (there can be
some  small differences due e.g. to different color rendering or the
screen's pixel's per centimeter).

(2) Or you can implement the logo so that the text is real HTML text, not
part of the image.  However, the text willnot look exactly like the
original if the logo uses a special font and furthermore the user can
change the font, size, and color.

Is there a legal problem presenting the logo as in (2)?  For example, does
it endanger the copyright status of the logo (I may not have the exact
legal terminaology here BTW)?   Is this legal difficulty sufficient that a
company could reasonably insist on presenting it as (1), or in some other
form that gives almost complete control of the appearance?

Thanks!
Len
p.s.
Would you copy w3c-wai-gl@w3.org  in your answer?  I had copied them in my 
original email to you but it bounced because I had your old 
address.  Congrats on your new position BTW!

--
Leonard R. Kasday, Ph.D.
Institute on Disabilities/UAP and Dept. of Electrical Engineering at Temple 
University
(215) 204-2247 (voice)                 (800) 750-7428 (TTY)
http://astro.temple.edu/~kasday         mailto:kasday@acm.org

Chair, W3C Web Accessibility Initiative Evaluation and Repair Tools Group
http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/IG/

The WAVE web page accessibility evaluation assistant: 
http://www.temple.edu/inst_disabilities/piat/wave/