What is Intellectual Property?
Filed Under: 101
Tags: 101, Copyright, Intellectual Property, Patents, Trademarks
Very simply put, intellectual property (IP) in the context of a business or even personal matters has the same significance as physical property, whether it is real estate, a vehicle, or a piece of equipment. If you are an intellectual property owner, you should protect your rights.
While most people instinctively know how to lock their car or build a fence around their plot of land, not everyone knows whether and/or how to protect his IP. This multi-part blog series is designed to: help define IP, give you a better understanding of patents, introduce some common patent procedures, and provide you with some overall resources regarding patents and patenting.
How is IP defined?
Just like other kinds of property, intellectual property needs to be protected from unauthorized use. The first step is to define your IP. In the US, there are four definitions and ways to protect different types of intellectual property:
- PATENTS provide rights for up to 20 years for inventions in three broad categories:
Utility patents protect useful processes, machines, articles of manufacture, and compositions of matter. Some examples: fiber optics, computer hardware, medications.
Design patents guard the unauthorized use of new, original, and ornamental designs for articles of manufacture. The look of an athletic shoe, a bicycle helmet, the Star Wars characters are all protected by design patents.
Plant patents are the way we protect invented or discovered asexually reproduced plant varieties. Hybrid tea roses, Silver Queen corn, Better Boy tomatoes are all types of plant patents.
- TRADEMARKS protect words, names, symbols, sounds, or colors that distinguish goods and services. Trademarks, unlike patents, can be renewed forever as long as they are being used in business. The roar of the MGM lion, the pink of the Owens-Corning insulation, and the shape of a Coca-Cola bottle are familiar trademarks.
- COPYRIGHTS protect works of authorship, such as writings, music, and works of art that have been tangibly expressed. The Library of Congress registers copyrights which last the life of the author plus 50 years. Gone With The Wind (the book and the film), Beatles recordings, and video games are all works that are copyrighted.
- TRADE SECRETS are information that companies keep secret to give them an advantage over their competitors. The formula for Coca-Cola is the most famous trade secret.
A good overview of IP can be found at: http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/ac/ahrpa/opa/museum/1intell.htm
*Haim Factor is a registered USPTO Patent Agent with nearly a decade of experience in patent drafting, prosecution, and overall IP strategies. His clients take advantage of his rich experience of over 25 years in business development of a wide array of B2B and B2C products and his experience with intellectual property protection both within the US and internationally.
He can be contacted at: haim.factor@1st-tech-ideas.com and at 302.200.1424.
Design Sponge Biz Ladies Share Copyright 101 for Designers
Filed Under: 101, Articles of Interest
Tags: Articles of Interest, Copyright, Entrepreneurs
I found a great article on my favorite blog Design Sponge by Amy J. Everhart, a lawyer who specializes in creative industries. She works with entrepreneurs, inventors, and business owners on the topics of copyright, trademark, entertainment, the arts and the internet. I found this article to be very interesting and informative. Below is an excerpt:
Copyright 101 for Designers
By Amy J. Everhart
As a designer, your designs are your lifeblood. Just as a jeweler keeps his jewels in a locked display case, you should safeguard your designs. I don’t mean the physical product embodying your designs, but the intangible right to them: the copyright. Yet maybe because a copyright isn’t something you can see or touch, creators often neglect to safeguard it. An understanding of the copyright basics goes a long way toward protecting why you’re doing this in the first place: the art.
What is a copyright? Skip ahead if I’m getting too “101” on you, but it never hurts to start at the beginning: What is a copyright in the first place, and why should you care if you have one? A copyright protects creative works, including works of visual art, and is actually a bundle of rights. In the case of a work of visual art, a copyright includes the rights to copy, display, sell, perform and make derivative works from your work.
When do I have copyright protection? The minute you create a design and it’s embodied in a tangible medium (meaning no longer just an idea in your head but sketched out on paper or something you can touch), you, as the author, own the copyright to that design. This is true even if the work is not registered with the U.S. Copyright Office and even if you don’t place a copyright symbol (©) on the work. But, as you can see below, doing both is important even if not required for copyright protection, because it will enhance and maximize your protection.
Do I need to register my design with the Copyright Office? You don’t have to register your work with the Copyright Office to acquire copyright protection. So why bother slogging through that frustrating registration process, not to mention spending the money it costs to register? Three reasons: 1) registration within five years of publication gives you a presumption of ownership; 2) registration is a prerequisite to filing a lawsuit for copyright infringement; and 3) registration makes available certain infringement remedies that might not be available to you otherwise, including the potential to recover attorneys’ fees and “statutory,” or a specific range of, damages Congress built directly into the Copyright Act. Also, don’t wait until someone has copied your work to register it. You’ll want to file that copyright-infringement lawsuit immediately and not have to wait for the Copyright Office’s stamp of approval on your registration. Also, you generally can’t seek attorneys’ fees or statutory damages unless you register the copyright before the work is copied.
Read the full article here: http://www.designspongeonline.com/2009/06/biz-ladies-09-copyright-101-for-designers.html
