alleged trademarks for the Hollywood sign

You may have read that the Hollywood sign is trademarked, and therefor you cannot sell photos or videos of it. In fact, on their web site, they imply that you are not permitted to. Stock media sites falsely list it as being protected by trademark, but my research indicates otherwise.

I searched for their trademark registrations on the USPTO web site, and the fact of the matter is that most of their trademark registrations are related to gift shops (tshirts, gift shop bags, and clocks) and that every time they tried to register a trademark for the sign itself, they failed.

I wrote down the serial numbers, and you can see here they tried to register the use of the Hollywood sign for signs, signage, stage scenery for video and film, etc, and all of their attempts failed. the only registrations they have that succeeded are for the gift shop items and for 'agencies' that have nothing to actually do with the sign itself.

all of these registrations included an exact image of the Hollywood sign:

serial number 85241029, Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, for "Non-luminous and non-mechanical metal signs". The USPTO declares the trademark as "ABANDONED"

Serial Number 78447081, Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, for "signage and stage props". The USPTO declares the trademark as "ABANDONED"

Serial Number 78447057, Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, for "stage scenery for motion picture and television recording productions". The USPTO declares the trademark as "ABANDONED"

Wikipedia says the sign is owned by the city of los angeles. since it is publically owned property, you do not need a property release. the Hollywood chamber of commerce has a nonprofit that is solely in charge of maintaining the property, but they don't own it. it is publically owned and you are free to sell photos and videos that contain it, regardless of what they mislead you to believe, or what is falsely displayed on stock media sites.

Thanks for that info.