Treatment of Trademarked Items
If photographing a contemporary commercial product, the owning company should be contacted. Use the following email template:
Dear [ENTER COMPANY NAME],
My name is [NAME] and I am the Digital Collection's Librarian at the Science History Institute, a research center, museum, library, and archive located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania focused in the history of science.
For an upcoming exhibit and our museum collection, we have acquired your product(s) [Enter product name(s)]. I am writing to request permission on behalf of the Science History Institute to photograph this product for inclusion in our Digital Collections and a Google Arts & Culture exhibit. The photography will digitally reproduce the physical object and may include any branding or logos visible on the product and product packaging.
I am writing to obtain permission from the trademark and copyright holders of this product for our reproduction. The Institute's photos will be freely and indefinitely available for viewing and download on the aforementioned platforms to the public and scholars for academic research. Proper acknowledgment of [Company Name] will be included in the Digital Collections record.
We appreciate your consideration of our permissions request.
Sincerely,
[NAME]
Save correspondence files to P:\Special Collections\Rights and Reproductions\Signed Permission Requests