Use of COA

[Donsel]

A question for the experts on heraldry. A COA is approved and registered with The Lord Lyon. I believe it is illegal for someone in Scotland, and presumably the UK, to use the said COA for commercial, or otherwise, purposes. For example a Clan Chiefs COA on a tee shirt. Is it illegal to do the same in another jurisdiction, the USA or Canada say. I was asked this question by someone who saw a COA as described at a Highland Games in Canada. The COA is registered in Scotland but not in Canada. I know COA registered in Canada are protected by the Trade Marks Act of Canada but I don't know if this extends to COA (Trade Marks) registered elsewhere and used without authority outside the jurisdiction of the registrar (the Lord Lyon, as an example). Can anyone on the forum speak to this with some authority, knowledge, or experience?

[MacMillan of Rathdown]

A question for the experts on heraldry. A COA is approved and registered with The Lord Lyon. I believe it is illegal for someone in Scotland, and presumably the UK, to use the said COA for commercial, or otherwise, purposes. For example a Clan Chiefs COA on a tee shirt. Is it illegal to do the same in another jurisdiction, the USA or Canada say. I was asked this question by someone who saw a COA as described at a Highland Games in Canada. The COA is registered in Scotland but not in Canada. I know COA registered in Canada are protected by the Trade Marks Act of Canada but I don't know if this extends to COA (Trade Marks) registered elsewhere and used without authority outside the jurisdiction of the registrar (the Lord Lyon, as an example). Can anyone on the forum speak to this with some authority, knowledge, or experience?

Sadly, the only legal protection that an armiger has from the usurpation of his arms by another person is generally limited to the country where those arms were first granted. And even that is not necessarily "iron clad". Additional protection may be available by copyright/trademark, but this is a costly (and tedious) business that, frankly, really doesn't provide much, if anything, in the way of real protection.

In reality, most chiefs recognize the fact that sooner or later their arms may turn up on a tee-shirt or ball cap, shrug, and just get on with their life. In theory a chief could sue to stop the unwarranted use of his arms (and some have, but with varying degrees of success) but at the end of the day they realize that they'd be lucky to recover their court costs. The other side of the coin is that these tee-shirts, etc., promote the chief's clan and from that standpoint do provide a sort of service to the chief so, on balance, it's not really such a bad thing.

[Mike_Oettle]

While MoR has spelt out the position from a practical point of view, it remains extremely bad form to make improper use of someone else’s coat of arms.
Printing the chief’s crest on a T-shirt is entirely acceptable, provided the people who wear it are actually clan members, since the display of the crest indicates submission to the chief.
There are ways of displaying a coat of arms that do not suggest that you own it or have some right to use it (wearing any but your own on a T-shirt or any other garment is wrong, unless you are a herald wearing a tabard), but to display someone else’s arms as if they are yours is a direct affront to the owner.
Regards,
Mike

[Geoff Withnell]

Why in the name of Heaven would someone WANT to wear someone else's arms? One of the purposes of arms is as identification. Wearing arms not your own is like wearing a namebadge with someone else's name on it.

While MoR has spelt out the position from a practical point of view, it remains extremely bad form to make improper use of someone else’s coat of arms.
Printing the chief’s crest on a T-shirt is entirely acceptable, provided the people who wear it are actually clan members, since the display of the crest indicates submission to the chief.
There are ways of displaying a coat of arms that do not suggest that you own it or have some right to use it (wearing any but your own on a T-shirt or any other garment is wrong, unless you are a herald wearing a tabard), but to display someone else’s arms as if they are yours is a direct affront to the owner.
Regards,
Mike

[MacMillan of Rathdown]

Why in the name of Heaven would someone WANT to wear someone else's arms? One of the purposes of arms is as identification. Wearing arms not your own is like wearing a namebadge with someone else's name on it.

True enough, Geoff, but probably less than 1/10th of 1% of the world's population knows that. The rest, naively, just assume that the tee-shirt affords them some sort of "brand" recognition in a sadly all-too- homogenized world.