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Written by : Owen Mulhearn |
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hello my name is John Mayer and I'm the patenting seed mark Resource Center librarian for Penn State this presentation is intended to help you understand the different types of intellectual property copyright patents trademarks and trade secrets then the process and benefit of obtaining a patent will be discussed finally patent searching which is important for determining if idea is already patented we introduced with basic and advanced examples you can find all the information from this presentation as many more sources on the research guide listed below there also is a self-paced tutorial on patent searching and the tutorial section of that guide as a Patent and Trademark Resource Center Penn State University Libraries as a mission to support both our students in the public finding patent and trademark information on with locating application materials contact me or any other Penn State Library to schedule a consultation appointment or send any questions to us as email however we do not provide legal advice and will not do searches for you there are four main types of intellectual property patents copyright and Trademark our public registrations with the government to give you a limited monopoly on an idea creative work trade secrets are protected by law but do not require registration each of these protects a different type of work for example patents exclude others from making using or selling your idea whereas copyright protects an original creative work trademarks protect a logo or name of a product or service in a particular industry there are actually three types of patents in the United States utility patents of what most people commonly understand is an invention either a device or process design patents have no functional novelty but they can be granted for a purely ornamental design plant patents are not genetic packs with GMO corn but are based on traditional plant breeding so look at this example what is the intellectual property in this device what do you think is protected by copyright what is protected by trademark what patents are there in this device and finally are there trade secrets protected within this example so for this mobile phone there are many trademarks there's the Apple logo both the name Apple and the picture of an apple the product name itself is a trademark I think a lot is protected by copyright both for someone who owns it the pictures taken by it some of the music on it is the creation of a musician and the software running on the device is copyright of unit Apple or the developer to created it there are so many patents it's hard to list them all but some examples are the circuits the touchscreen battery antennas speaker anything that's related to how it works but there are so many design patents Apple is very famous for their unique designs and they appended some of them such as the overall look of the iPod finally there are trade secrets so many we might not even know because they're now publicly disclosed so each of those types of intellectual property has a different duration of protection after this expires anyone can use it becomes part of what's called the public domain so copyright has been extended many times right now it's the life of the author plus seven years so it sometimes keeps getting longer and longer utility patents used to be 14 years but were changed to 20 design patents are still 14 years trademarks can be renewed indefinitely as long as the product or service is still being sold and trade secrets have no cent term of protection they last as long as the secret can be tucked there are other requirements for an electoral property for example copyright does not actually require registration copyright is secured as soon as you create something whether it's a writing an email or taking a photograph you already have copyright over that however registration does provide some advantages for example in court there is a proof of the date of copyright and other documentation associated with registration there are some restrictions on what can be copyrighted you cannot copyright facts such as taking the temperature of the weather outside the cost of a copyright is less than that of times are trademarks and can be usually less than $100 trademarks protect your brand company or product from confusion in the marketplace it can be almost anything words an image even a sound or color you can't copy a current trademark and you have to already be using it when you register you can file for it with an intent to use which means that you have a year from when you register and so you can provide proof that you're selling your service or product you can see here are some examples of Penn State University's many trademarks trademarks are in general less expensive than patents but more expensive than copyright I'm going to talk about trade secrets before patterns because they know generally they don't require registration but you must keep documentation of efforts you've made to keep the secret they don't protect against every eventualities so for example if something was reverse engineered or is independently discovered then it wasn't stolen and trade secrets will not protect it what are some things you might use trade secrets to protect could be a customer list product formula or search algorithm algorithms may or may not be patentable so they're often kept secret patents offer the broadest protection of any intellectual property since they can be used to stop others from making selling or even importing your mission it even protects you from someone independently coming up with the idea on their own but there are more requirements to getting a patent than any other type of an electro poverty first it must satisfy utility which means it has to work so you don't have to submit a prototype but the patent examiner is usually scientist an engineer on this to understand how it works it also must be new or novel that means there's no prior art or earlier examples of the idea currently in the u.s. there's a 12 month grace period after you make your invention public when only you can apply for a patent on the idea otherwise no one can apply for ideas that are already in the pub and already know finally the Patent Office has to decide whether you mentioned is non-obvious it's their judgment on how great an improvement over current technology or existing art to the invention is let's look an example of a patent application that failed see if you can figure out why the title is technical and theoretical specifications for work drive technology which test does that fail well it doesn't have utility since it doesn't actually work it's just theoretical so that's why this patent application wouldn't fail as well as those for time machines what about novelty so here's an example on some of someone else's prior publication of an idea or prevent you from getting a patent even if you can prove you are the first to invent it this is the change in the US law since 2013 when inventors could keep notebooks and prove they were the first to invent in this case even though Green invented first Smith published first therefo
Thanks for your comment Ching Snopek, have a nice day.
- Owen Mulhearn, Staff Member
Thanks for this interesting article
Thanks Elmo your participation is very much appreciated
- Owen Mulhearn
About the author
I've studied aztec history at University of Alaska Fairbanks in Fairbanks and I am an expert in sociology of religion. I usually feel high. My previous job was medical and scientific illustrator I held this position for 10 years, I love talking about fishfarming and sketching. Huge fan of Ron Swanson I practice wrestling: greco-roman and collect dolls.
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