Intellectual property law questions and answers [Beginner's Guide]

Patents, trademarks, copyrights, and trade secrets are valuable assets of the company and understanding how they work and how they are created is critical to knowing how to protect them.

The most common type of intellectual property dispute is that of infringement. This is where intellectual property is used or appropriated without the owner's permission by another. Infringement can apply to many categories of intellectual property.

The three main areas of intellectual property law that innovators use to protect their ideas are Trademarks, Patents, and Copyrights.

Copyright, trademark, and patent are three of the most common types of IP protection. These grant you the exclusive rights to your creations, especially when it comes to the commercial gains of its use.

Generally, the creator of a work is deemed its owner. However, intellectual property ownership can be determined differently for different types of property and under varying circumstances. For example, if work is created for an employer, the employer is the owner of that intellectual property.

In general, the term of copyright is the life of the author plus 70 years after the author's death (or last surviving author's death if a joint work). For works made for hire and anonymous or pseudonymous works, the duration of copyright is 95 years from publication or 120 years from creation, whichever is shorter.

US law regarding jointly owned intellectual property A patent can be owned jointly if devised jointly by more than one person. As far as US patent law is concerned, the default rule is that each joint owner can utilize or exploit the patent without the permission of the other joint owners.

Patent. A patent is used to prevent an invention from being created, sold, or used by another party without permission. Patents are the most common type of intellectual property rights that come to people's minds when they think of intellectual property rights protection.

You can find federally registered marks and pending applications using the USPTO's Trademark Electronic Search System (TESS). The results also tell you if a mark is still live (registration is still active), and link to more information about it in the Trademark Status & Document Retrieval System.

Congress derives its power to regulate patents and copyrights from the "intellectual property clause" of the Constitution. See U.S. Constitution, Article I, Section 8. Congress' power to regulate trademarks is constitutionally grounded in the Commerce Clause.

Intellectual property laws passed by Congress are overseen by two government agencies: the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and the U.S. Copyright Office. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office is responsible for issuing and monitoring all federally registered patents and trademarks.

A patent is an intellectual property (IP) right for a technical invention. It allows you to prevent others from using your invention for commercial purposes for up to 20 years.

The terms “copyright” and “intellectual property” are often used interchangeably. However, copyright is just a part of the scope of intellectual property, as are trade marks, patents, and designs. Intellectual property (IP) describes a form of property which is the intangible output of the human creative mind.

Intellectual property law exists in order to protect the creators and covers areas of copyright, trademark law, and patents. Thus, intellectual property is an umbrella term encompassing both copyright and industrial property, such as trademarks, patents, and inventions.

If you determine that the invention is probably not patentable, the most effective way to protect yourself is to have prospective licensees sign a nondisclosure agreement before you reveal your invention. This document is sometimes called an "NDA" or a "confidentiality agreement," but the terms are similar.

There are some limited statutory exceptions, but the basic position is that, without an agreement, the creator owns the IP. This reality is commonly misunderstood and often causes disputes between parties later on.

1. Keep Business Ideas and Trade Secrets a Secret.
2. Document Your Concepts and Original Content in Detail.
3. Apply for a Trademark.
4. Register All Your IP, Trade Secrets, and Creative Works.
5. Make the Investment.

Owners of shared intellectual property agree to share patent rights with both each other and third parties. Alliances, patent pools, and other organizations may choose this route for many reasons, such as finding ways to work around overlapping intellectual property rights.

As a general rule, for works created after January 1, 1978, copyright protection lasts for the life of the author plus an additional 70 years.

Most importantly, trademark rights are perpetual, as long as the trademark is still being used in commerce.