2 Owners one 1 piece of work. Possible?

[neoscoob]

What is the name of your state? Wa

Pop quiz:

Say you have 2 individuals who contribute equally to a piece of work (such as a graphic or painting, etc). Say they decide they both want to own it together. Can both of them claim copyright, each individual having full rights on that work?

Challenge 2:
(Assuming for some reason both individuals can claim full copyright ownership)
Now lets say the work was a logo. Logo's can be trademarked. Trademarks can only have one owner (so far as I know). Now, one individual decides to trademark their co-owned logo.

This seems like a messed up scenario. It seems to me you just cannot co-own work like this in full, but rather, that you must divide it percentage-wise. Yes, maybe I just answered my own question. But thats why I pose it as a "pop quiz". I'm not a law-buff, so I cannot say for sure. Anyone have thoughts on this?

 

[The Occultist]

Both people may retain a copyright to the work, and each can do whatever they want with it independently of the other. If a profit is made, however, then all holding the copyright are entitled to a portion of said profit.
No idea about trademarks...

 

[spmlawyer]

Trademarks

Trademarks can be jointly owned just like all property.

 

[neoscoob]

ok, true, trademarks can be co-owned. But lets say 2 individuals have equal share on a copyright, but ONE of them goes and gets a trademark (or patent if its software) in their name only. Wouldn't the other individual by default still be able to claim royalties or dues on the use of that trademark/patent?

 

[divgradcurl]

ok, true, trademarks can be co-owned. But lets say 2 individuals have equal share on a copyright, but ONE of them goes and gets a trademark (or patent if its software) in their name only. Wouldn't the other individual by default still be able to claim royalties or dues on the use of that trademark/patent?

For trademarks, sure. For patents, maybe not. With patents, if the two people are both inventors of the invention that leads to the patent, then if only one inventor is listed on the patent, that is grounds to invalidate the patent, and the patent would likely be found enenforceable in a court case, unless the inventorship was corrected. If the sole inventor rightly files for a patent, but there is some contractual agreement so that the patent should be assigned to two people as joint owners, and the one party doesn't do it, then the other party might be able to sue for half of the profits and half of the ownership.