Intellectual property, although intangible, can still be owned and your intellectual property rights must be protected. Modern businesses, especially since the rise of the Internet, have seen an increase in the creation of intellectual property. However, the Internet makes it even easier for someone to steal your ideas and work. An intellectual property attorney who is trained to help claim patent, trademark, copyright, and trade secret rights can help you protect your intellectual property.
Types of intellectual property include patents, trademarks and trade dress, copyrights, and trade secrets.
patents
The government grants a patent that allows a (usually) 20-year monopoly on an invention that was previously “not generally known.” Patents are intended to encourage investment in research and development. If you create a useful new process for making something, a machine, manufacturing, or even an improvement on something that already exists, you can patent your invention and prohibit others from “making, using, offering for sale, or selling…or importing” the invention to the US Your right to patent your invention is a constitutional right (Article I, Section 8).
Patents are subdivided into three groups: design, utility, and plant. Design patents protect innovations in the appearance (though not the structure or function) of an article. Utility patents are for completely new inventions, including machines, industrial processes, compositions of matter, and articles of manufacture. Plant patents cover innovations in plant life, such as new plant species created from the reproduction of cuttings and grafting of existing plants.
Patent attorneys will investigate previously granted patents to see if a similar product has already been patented or if you should apply for a patent for your invention. A patent attorney will also tell you if your idea is not patentable because it is a law of nature, a physical or abstract phenomenon. You should look for a patent or intellectual property attorney because in order to process a client’s patent application, he or she must be registered with the US patent office. A patent attorney will also need to have passed an exam in the sciences and engineering to better understand and serve customers.
Trademarks
Trademarks are granted for words, names, symbols, or devices that separate and distinguish businesses and services. These include arbitrary names like Kodak, suggestive names like Caterpillar (tractors), descriptive names that indicate the company’s products or services, and generic names that are descriptive. Generic names and some descriptive names cannot be protected, so a trademark or intellectual property attorney should be consulted to see if your name qualifies for trademark rights.
You can also file an intent to use request to reserve a name that will later become a trademark. (This is especially important with the expansion of Internet businesses.)
Trademark attorneys can also be sought to ensure that your new business is not using a trademark. The consequences of using a trademark, even if you have invested money and publicity in promoting your business, include being sued for infringement.
Copyright
Copyrights protect the individual expression of an idea, but do not protect the idea itself (see patent). Copyright is intended to promote scientific progress. You can copyright your writing, performance (music, dance), art, sound, compilations. You may not register uncompiled ideas or facts, words or phrases (however, these may be registered as trademarks, so consult a copyright attorney). If you come up with an idea or invention while working for a company, it can be patented or copyrighted by the company you work for, but the copyrighted work belongs to you, the employee, not the company that owned it. employs. However, there are loopholes, and an intellectual property lawyer will help you with the process of obtaining copyright to your expression, but will also save you trouble and time to overcome obstacles.
If you’re a business, you need an intellectual property attorney who specializes in copyright because, especially with internet businesses, you’ll need to ensure that by contract your website design can be copyrighted to your business and it will not belong to the employee or independent contractor. who created it? This also applies to software.
trade secrets
It is important to protect your business trade secrets from being misappropriated. Although patents have a limited coverage time and are released after 20 years, trade secrets are always protected. To qualify as a trade secret, it must have independent economic value to the company. For example, the Coca-Cola recipe is a trade secret, not a patent, and therefore will never be disclosed because without keeping the recipe secret, the company would not be able to compete by offering an individual product.