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Written by : Edwin Geel |
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hello and welcome back to inventedly this week we were looking at the question can i protect or actually in particular can i patent my domain now this is something that actually comes up quite a bit because a lot of individuals think the patents relate to protecting in some way shape or fashion brands and brand names and companies and things like that let's take a look at it now one of the things to keep in mind when we look at can i protect my my pat can i patent my brand name is that that is actually a little bit of a misnomer because patenting relates is you may recall two inventions whereas brand and brand name relates what to trademarks so it's actually two different forms of intellectual property that are going on here and i think this is a good time to kind of review at a high level what each of the aspects of intellectual property are relating to first when we talk about patents in particular as i indicated this is inventions and and so if it's often if you look at the um the u.s code associated with patents is looking at making using or selling an invention an apparatus a method so it's an actual thing that they in in essence can be sold in some manner when we look at brands that is what i often teach students that is the key word to be thinking of when you think of trademarks trademarks is all about about brand brand confidence brand distinction and and and here one of the main goals of trademarks is consumer confidence such that when you go to the store and you pick up an object or let's say a bottle of water you know that for example that bottle of water is indeed from the source that you're buying it from so it's it's confidence in the source from which you are actually obtaining the material or the the item that you are actually buying now when we look at the other aspects of intellectual property we have copyrights and copyrights relate to creations so that that can relate to obviously books often is where where you see copyrights often coming into play you can also have copyrights on on works of art think of statues and things like that you can have on architectural designs you can have it on plays and how it is the place are choreographed so if it relates to something that is being created and then put forth into the public then that could be the basis for a copyright last but not least we have uh trade secrets and there is no secret there that that relates in particular to secrets so if we have something that we are creating that we need to keep as a secret that would be a perfect thing to kind of focus on with respect to trade secrets now sometimes some of the questions that arise with respect to can i patent something let's take just kind of a clear example and and often what i look at with with my students is that we look at the example of a hammer so we have a hammer and let's say that we're going to protect the hammer or some matter a patent would be off of the the actual hammer itself so we have a hammer as a type of apparatus so this is a physical object that we're trying to protect um the trademark would be obviously let's say the the brand that it is being that that hammer is being sold under so let's for purposes of our discussion let's assume it's a brand such as stanley or some other construction type company so again two different things we have a brand here we have the actual apparatus here copyrights what would relate to this this could be relating to websites so let's say there's a website that actually sells the hammer or information user manual that describes how to use the manner things of that nature now trade secrets is often let's say a little bit of the hard one and for purposes of our discussion let's assume that this was a 3d printed hammer now i'm not aware that hammers are 3d printed but for purposes of our discussion today let's just assume that it actually is 3d printed and a trade secret would not would often relate to something that is not being shown to the public eye so let's say that we have a 3d framework and we are 3d printing a hammer when we look at it from that point of view let's say that there is a scaffolding for the 3d structure so we have you know if this was our hammer we might have something along the lines of a 3d structure that was used initially to build up underneath the hammer so that you can actually build it up now if it's something like this let's say this is our secret sauce where when we subject it to a specific temperature then that secret sauce melts away and this is sometimes that they do where when they are 3d printing and things of that nature they might have a resin or a specific wax and when they go ahead and heat it up to a specific temperature it's at that point that it melts away and the public for all intense purposes never knows that it was there well if it never knows that it was there then that's the perfect thing to just kind of keep a secret and that and that's something that um that again would relate to to trade secrets so when we look at overall everything that's going on within this particular example we see very clearly the wheat that the hammer is really relating that the invention itself the brand under which it is being sold extra material that is associated with disseminating information associated with it and obviously any secret potentially that relates to it so hope that that helps have a wonderful week you
Thanks for your comment Rosalinda Devincenzo, have a nice day.
- Edwin Geel, Staff Member
a special forces us within a way that my
Thanks Shawnee your participation is very much appreciated
- Edwin Geel
About the author
I've studied spectroscopy at Berea College in Berea and I am an expert in library instruction. I usually feel irate. My previous job was hospital administrator I held this position for 8 years, I love talking about dining and wrestling. Huge fan of Ron Swanson I practice flag football and collect casino chips.
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