Copyright, Patent and Trademark

Copyright, Patent and Trademark are intellectual property protections. Even though there are some similarities among these tools of property protection but there are confusing to some extent and all serve different purposes. However, it is difficult to know what form of intellectual property works for what facets of your business. Let's take the time to break all that down.

Copyright is a form of protection that is granted to the authors of “original works of authorship” both published and unpublished. Using copyright means protecting your business and products from any frauds. All forms of inventions are protected through this system: literature, visual arts, devices, etc as long as they are palpable. Websites, music, graphics are also protected, giving the owner exclusive rights in copying, distributing and sell it without any restrictions. Copyright laws are governed by the Copyright Act of 1976 and the work granted with copyright (for any work created after January 1, 1978) is protected for the lifetime of the creator of the work plus fifty years after his or her death. But if someone needs a longer period, it is possible if that is established by the national law.

Patents are a part of what we call intellectual property and it is protected through the United States Patent and Trademark Office. The purpose of a patent is to protect the intellectual property of the inventor. Patents prohibit anyone other than the patent holder from making or selling the patented item (or using the business method, or planting the new plant, in the case of those patent types) without the permission of the patent holder. Laws of physics or other forms of nature laws, like mathematic, botanic or zoology cannot be patented. Unpractical or offensive inventions also cannot be patented. Arts, like music, writing, or literature, can be patented in order to obtain protection from stealing- these belong to the creative area and the patent laws apply different in this field.

Trademarks are a word, name, symbol or device which is used in the trading of goods to indicate the source of the goods and to distinguish them from the goods of other manufacturers. Trademarks give a company exclusive right for the use of a mark. Trademark rights may be used to prevent others from using a confusingly similar mark, but not to prevent others from making the same goods or from selling the same goods or services under a clearly different mark.

This entails searching the pending & registered Federal and State trademark files as well as the US National Common-Law files. Prior to investing your time, money & effort into a name, it is strongly advised that comprehensive research be conducted to ensure that the name you're interested in is truly available.