Need help with trademarks in some emojis I want to invent.

[Mageshio]

Hi, I live in California.
I would like to get help to create some emoji s and also some cartoonist phrases like LOL. I need to know where to start looking, due to the fact I already did some research on some of them and I cannot find them to be Trademark.
I want to create some shirts, but don't want to get sued on the long run for stepping on someone else's toes.
what do you recommend for me to start doing?, what is the cost of it? should I consult an attorney? Where can I find out if my emojis are trademark or my funny phrases are?
I just need a quick head start. I appreciate everyone's help

 

[quincy]

Hi, I live in California.
I would like to get help to create some emoji s and also some cartoonist phrases like LOL. I need to know where to start looking, due to the fact I already did some research on some of them and I cannot find them to be Trademark.
I want to create some shirts, but don't want to get sued on the long run for stepping on someone else's toes.
what do you recommend for me to start doing?, what is the cost of it? should I consult an attorney? Where can I find out if my emojis are trademark or my funny phrases are?
I just need a quick head start. I appreciate everyone's help

Your goal of not wanting to get sued is a good one.

Emoji artwork copyrights are held by the font creators. To start your search for the holders of the rights, you can visit the following Unicode site: http://www.unicode.org/charts/fonts.html

To see if any funny phrases you wish to use are federally registered trademarks, you can do a federal trademark search (http://tess2.uspto.gov/) but, because trademarks do not need to be federally registered to be protected, you will need to expand your search to state registries and the internet.

You have a lot of work ahead of you. If you want to create shirts to sell, you will want to be original and creative. This is not always easy to do. It might seem that everything you want to do has already been done before and there are rights that need to be considered. So I wish you much good luck.