A common word like "subway" cannot be copyrighted. But the Subway logo is indeed a registered trademark. The changes the company has made to its logo, such as re-fresh they did to their brand a year ago, are also protected.
signbrad said:
Of course, the Jack Daniels logo is very likely protected by trademark law and laws that protect trade dress. Trademark law is not specifically designed to prevent copying logos, but to prohibit the use of a name or mark in such a way that causes confusion among consumers.
A company's brand is one of their most valuable pieces of intellectual property. Trademark law does more than just protect consumers from being confused by seeing two nearly identical yet competing brands on a store shelf. Illegal merchandising is a big racket. If some third party is selling shirts or other stuff with a company's logo on it and that sale was not approved the owner of the brand can drag the offender into court over it.
There's a kitchen and bathroom counter top company in my town called Hard Rock Surfaces. Years ago when they first started out they incorporated the same "Hard Rock" lettering used in the Hard Rock Cafe and Hard Rock Hotel logos into their own logo. We didn't do any
sign work for this company in the beginning (they went with a lower bid from another company). But we specifically warned them about the legal risks they were taking with their logo and suggested they change it. They didn't listen. They figured, "we're just in Lawton, Oklahoma; nobody is going to care." About a year ago they got sued for trademark infringement. They had to pay some kind of significant judgment to the Seminole Tribe (who now own Hard Rock) and had to immediately change their branding to something that did not look like the well known Hard Rock logo. But they were able to keep the name Hard Rock Surfaces.
My own opinion regarding use of well known brands: if the use isn't fully legit don't take the chance on it. With the kind of technology we have today on the Internet it doesn't take much work for a legal team to find infringing examples of a company's trademark. Going to court can be very expensive. Not many of us
sign folks can afford that kind of hassle.