You can't copyright a single word, except as to use that word as an original concept in a literary work. Thus the Tolkein Estate has a copyright on the Ents and Hobbits, and TSR had to rename then Halflings and Treants for D&D. As for the trademark, no one has a trademark on digital models of cars for 'Delorean' or 'DMC', which means that lwanmtr actually owns the trademark on such, although unregistered as such. If lwanmtr wanted to be really picky, (s)he could insist that no one else may use the logo on their automobiles and be perfectly within his(er) rights. As to the model's look itself, it's not a patent violation because it doesn't run, and it's not copyrightable because it's not considered a creative work, but a mechanical one --the design may be covered as an Artistic Patent, but that's not relevant because, again, the model doesn't do what a car does, which means the apatent isn't violated. R2-D2 can be copyrighted as a character because it's part of an expressive work created by Lucas. On that point, note that I only give away free lightsabres but Clint (as HawkinZ Graphics) sells his Lazer Blade. R2-D2 is also trademarked, but a trademark, as the term's name implies, must apply to a specific trade. In other words, if LucasArts/Hasbro has no specific Trademark on the term 'R2-D2' as regards 3-D models, I could certainly make a DeLorean model and sell it as an 'R2-D2 Sports Coupe' but I couldn't us R2-D2, the robot's, likeness, because he's part of a copyrighted work. Did that make any sense? Recap: a Trademark (TM, (R)) protects the use of a name associated with a particular trade, that is, a particular type of product. a Service Mark (SM, (R)) protects the use of a name associated with a particular service, and is legally identical to a trademark. a Registered Trademark simply means that the government has done a search to make sure no one else is using it already, you've paid your $350, and you then legally get to put the (R) on it rather than a TM or SM. The US Patent and Trademark ofice also recognises registered trademarks from other countries, though with less importance usually. It ignores unregistered trademarks from other countries. Examples include Disney (movies and loads of other things), Time Warner (books, television, and loads of other stuff), Dungeons & Dragons (role-playing games, books, movies, toys), and Star Wars (movies, toys, bedclothes, clothing, and about everything else under the twin suns of Tattooine or anywhere else), DeLorean (motorcars, and fragrances apparntly) a Patent prevents someone from making and selling the same device or process that you have patented. It doesn't prevent someone from using it themselves, merely from selling it. It also has to be a distinctively original idea. That's why Amazon's patent on 'one-click purchasing' was a joke (and overturned). A device means anything you can use, eat, whatever, but not something you read or go to the theatre to see. You can patent a TV set, and you can copyright a sitcom, but you can't copyright a TV set. Examples include the Suck-n-Cut (Ronco), Everlasting Gobstopper4 (wonka confections), toy Lightsabers [sic] (Hasbro), and the Sears Tower (dunno, but it's not Sears). Artistic patents protect the design and appearance of a functional device from being co-opted by other functional devices of the same sort. Examples include Toblerone (Swiss candy bar with a distinctive shape -- no other candy bar can be this shape), DeLorean motorcars (the shape, regardless of what's under the hood -- no other automobile can look just like a DeLorean), and iMacs (successfully defended, which is why the eMachines eOne PC, which looks a lot like an iMac isn't available in the US). Copyright protects an original literary or artistic work from being copied, distributed, or being derived from by someone without those rights. This covers movies, TV shows, songs and books, but not cars, tanks, or retirement homes. Copyright says you can't make a movie with a droid named R2-D2 as a main character -- and even that's fuzzy, because you could, in theory, have a robot in a Star Trek episode named R2-D2, if that robot was made on Earth and named after the famous droid from the Star Wars saga, and it could even look just like him... because at that point it's not derived from Star Wars, but from pop culture. However, you couldn't get away with it in something like Farscape, which is set in a part of the galaxy far, far away, and could not conceivably derive things from Earth culture. For a closer-to-home example for me, the character 'Dodger' in the Shadowrun novels (and the earlier playtest sessions in Chicago) is derived from Oliver Twist, as is his conpaniion 'Twist'. This is expressly referred to in the books, I hear, and it was definitely said in the playtest sessions. Oliver Twist is still copyrighted, but the Dicken's estate couldn't to a thing about it if they wanted to, because even where the characters and plotline resemble the story in Oliver Twist, the story is not a derivative work. Derivative work is the fuzziest thing in here, but essentially means that the work could be used as a represenation or extension of the original work. In other words, a 'spin-off'. In the Shadowrun example above, the story could have taken place without Dickens ever having existed. The main characters would have had different names, but would have done much the same things. Oh, yeah, and just a note, because I see this goof all over the place -- it's 'Copyright' not 'Copywrite'. As in, the right to copy, which is what distributors do, not to write copy, which is what advertisers do. As a further note, it's not wrong to sell an R2-D2 or Enterprise model, but it's a civil liability to sell an R2-D2 model that is a model of the droid R2-D2 from Star Wars. It's pefectly legal and not a civil liability to sell a functional model of the Mars Land Rover, because it's a patented device, not a copyrighted character. And you could even call it R2-D2 if you wanted, provided Hasbro or LucasArts has no trademark on 3-D models named R2-D2.