Scott,

I understand your position on this. It is not that of several intellectual property attorneys I've consulted with on the subject. Obviously lawyers make their money by disagreeing with each other, but for what it's worth readers might want to see what other experts have said on this subject. The following was put together on the basis of legal advice and appears on the AHS website:

3.  Why Not Trademark or Copyright My Arms?Many people ask why they cannot protect their arms in the United States under either the copyright or trademark laws.

3.1  CopyrightThere are several problems with relying on copyright to protect armorial bearings. First of all, U.S. courts have consistently held that copyright to a work of art subsists only in the specific rendering, not to the general idea of what is depicted. An artist may hold the copyright to a painting of a blue shield with a golden deer jumping over a silver log, but this does not prevent another artist from painting the same scene in a different style. Thus, a specific emblazonment of a coat of arms may be copyrighted, but that will not prevent another artist from emblazoning the same arms with a different shape of shield, a different rendering of any animals in the design, changing the helm, changing the mantling, or any other alteration that a court might find substantial enough to constitute a new work of art. Even a slight difference might suffice in the eyes of a court. Some have suggested that perhaps the blazon could be copyrighted, but what is subject to copyright is a new creative work, and the courts have found that a basic description of a creative work is not necessarily creative in itself. In any case, there is sufficient flexibility in how arms are blazoned that it would be easy to evade any protection offered by asserting copyright in the blazon.

Even if it were possible to copyright the general idea of a particular coat of arms, and extend that protection to all derivative depictions of the same arms, one would still have to show that the design of the arms required creative effort. This would not apply to arms inherited from ancestors, or to arms granted by foreign sources. Other issues include the fact that copyrights can be bought and sold; customarily personal arms cannot. Finally, copyright in any work exists for only a limited time. While recent legislation has extended the duration of copyright, it eventually expires. But the main thing that distinguishes personal armorial bearings from other symbols is that they are indefinitely hereditary in the same family.

3.2  TrademarkIt is possible to register one's arms as a trademark under state or federal law. The problem here is that a registered trademark is valid only if it is actually used in one's trade or profession. Most armigers do not intend to use their arms for that purpose. Moreover, the same problems concerning the extent to which a design must be altered to constitute a different design arise in the trademark area as well; a court adjudicating a case will not be likely to ask whether the marks are sufficiently differenced under the law of arms but whether a reasonable consumer, seeing the two emblazonments, is likely to confuse one with the other. Even if the arms are used in business, once they are registered as the trademark they are typically tied to the business. If the business is sold, the trademark usually goes to the new owner. Thus, if a business owner has registered his arms as the trademark of his company, and he dies and the company is bought out as part of the estate settlement, his children may find that they have no right to their hereditary arms.