She dreamed up the brand before day one - but the firm paid for the design
An attorney dreamed up a legal brand and registered the domain - then lost it because she built it on her employer's dime.
The US Trademark Trial and Appeal Board ruled on September 10 that the "Birth Justice" logo belonged to the Olsman, MacKenzie, Peacock & Wallace law firm, not the former associate who filed a trademark application in her own name.
The story starts in January 2018. The associate, a birth-injury specialist, sketched ideas for a logo featuring Lady Justice holding a baby and registered birthjustice.com while at another firm. She told Olsman principals about the concept during recruitment, then joined in June 2018. No employment agreement was signed. Nothing addressed trademark ownership.
That missing clause decided everything.
The firm retained its longstanding graphic designer to build the logo. The designer invoiced the firm. The firm paid. The associate drove the creative process - emailing reference images, drawing revision sketches, guiding multiple rounds. One principal called the project "your baby (pun intended)."
The finished logo debuted on business cards at a legal conference in October 2018. The associate attended alongside a firm partner, registered and paid for by the firm. Both sides agreed this was the first use in commerce - on a card listing her as an Olsman attorney with the firm's contact details.
Every subsequent use - slides, social media, promotional items - happened while she remained an Olsman employee representing clients under the firm's fee agreement, covered by its malpractice insurance.
In December 2020, still employed, she filed a trademark application in her own name using the firm's address. She resigned in September 2021. The firm opposed.
The Board found that sketches and a domain name do not create trademark rights - those come from use in commerce. Every commercial use pointed back to the firm. Casual emails calling the logo "your baby" and "my logo" did not amount to an ownership agreement, especially when the associate herself had written "our final logo." A firm principal testified it "would not make financial sense for the firm to agree that an employee would own a logo that the firm's designer created and the firm fully funded."
The Board applied a presumption from its 2024 DowntownDC precedent: where a mark is created and used within the scope of employment, the goodwill belongs to the employer.
No written IP clause does not mean the employee owns it - but one paragraph in the offer letter would have kept this out of a tribunal entirely.
