Twelve Steps To Filing A U.s. Patent Application
Posted on April 24, 2008 - Filed Under Legal and Law | Leave a Comment
Inventing is a challenging task. Before you bring the invention to market, it is wise to take the appropriate steps to insure that you protect your invention. The most important protection that you can get is a patent. Intellectual property law is complex. Obtaining a patent can be expensive and usually requires the services of a patent attorney, who can walk you through the steps of evaluating your product, and assist you in the patent acquisition process. This guide is intended to give you an overview of the steps needed to acquire a U.S. patent.
Read More..>>The Difference Between Trade Secrets And Trademarks
Posted on April 22, 2008 - Filed Under Legal and Law | Leave a Comment
Some people get confused between trade secrets and trademarks. A trademark is something that is publicly recognized and known as being officially associated with a particular company. In contrast a trade secret can be a much more broad definition and by its very name is not made public.
According to the laws in most states, any device, pattern, formula, idea, or collection of information that gives the owner an advantage in the marketplace and is protected by the owner in a way that shows that it can be reasonably expected to keep their competitors or the public from finding out about it without stealing it is considered a trade secret.
Read More..>>International Trademarks And The Madrid Protocol
Posted on April 22, 2008 - Filed Under Legal and Law | Leave a Comment
Protecting your logo and so on with a trademark is a smart move. Ah, but what about protecting it in the United States AND internationally?
Filling for a trademark is a smart move for practically any business. Although the process can be lengthy, the final approval gives you the ability to stop competitors from using your mark to confuse consumers and perhaps steal them.
To obtain a trademark, one has to file an application with the Patent and Trademark Office. The application sets out the areas, known as classes, you wish the mark to apply to. Once the “PTO” approves your application, it is published for comment. Assuming no objections are raised, your trademark is approved. It is important to understand, however, the mark only applies to the United States.
Read More..>>Intellectual Property – Copyright Infringement – Design Rights
Posted on April 19, 2008 - Filed Under Legal and Law | Leave a Comment
The case of Landor and Hawa International Ltd v Azure Designs Ltd (CA) [2006], involved a dispute over the design of a type of suitcase. The claimant company had been designing, importing and selling travel bags and suitcases since 1985. In June 2002, the managing director produced a design for an expanding section (“the Expander Design”) which was to be incorporated into hard shell-style suitcases.
Suitcases incorporating the Expander Design were then produced and sold in the UK and abroad.
Read More..>>Buying A Website – Problems With Intellectual Property
Posted on April 18, 2008 - Filed Under Legal and Law | Leave a Comment
There are many ways to make money online including buying another website that may be a competitor or compliment to yours. When doing so, you need to watch out for IP problems.
The creation of a web business tends to be a herky-jerky event. Things can go full blast for a few months, sit gathering dust for a year and then get rolling again. This can lead to a certain lack of organization in the business. In particular, it can lead to nightmares with intellectual property.
Read More..>>Copyright Is Dead! Long Live Copyright!
Posted on April 16, 2008 - Filed Under Legal and Law | Leave a Comment
Infringement. File sharing. Piracy. Counterfeiting. Plagiarism.
Whatever you call it, the theft of copyrighted material is just about impossible to control in our ever-expanding, ever-increasing digital age. In fact, there is a widely held belief that technology has made copyright impossible to enforce.
Take the entertainment industry, for example:
While all school children are taught the dangers of plagiarism of print materials when they write their first term papers, many of these same kids are some of the greatest offenders who believe that internet file sharing of their favorite music is their due simply for being fans of this or that rock or rap group.
Read More..>>You Can Trademark A Lot More Than You Think
Posted on April 11, 2008 - Filed Under Legal and Law | Leave a Comment
Discussing a trademark in general is often difficult. Why? It has to do with the fact that you can trademark many things that are unique and entirely different.
When a person thinks of a trademark, most picture a logo of some sort. The swooping Coca Cola brand name is the classic example. Another example is the big red “O” you see in the television commercials for Overstock.com. Such examples of trademarks are fairly standard and most people can understand them without much effort.
Read More..>>Intellectual Property – The 3 Branches: Copyrights, Patents & Trademarks
Posted on March 27, 2008 - Filed Under Legal and Law | Leave a Comment
When you hear the phrase intellectual property, what do you think of? How can something that exists in your mind be considered property? Are your ideas your property similar to that of your house or car?
Simply put, no, your ideas are not something you can solely own. After all, if ideas were never shared in the marketplace, where would we be? Imagine if Bill Gates had never shared his ideas about the new BASIC programming language that he and Paul Allen developed…would Microsoft exist? How would that have impacted our world today? Let’s take it back even further: what would life be like if Louis Pasteur had never shared his ideas about heat treatment, what we now call pasteurization? The sharing of ideas has brought us to where we are, good and bad.
Read More..>>Intellectual Property - What It Is
Posted on March 27, 2008 - Filed Under Legal and Law | Leave a Comment
Intellectual Property (often just called “IP”) is a general term covering patents, trademarks, designs, copyrights, geographical indications and in some countries the concept of “unfair competition”. It is, as the name suggests, the intangible personal property arising from intellectual creation. Since intangible, owner of intellectual property cannot build a fence around it as with real estate or place it in a bank locker as with valuables. To address the situation, governments have created a variety of forms of intellectual property protection.
Types of Intellectual Property Protection
Some of the more common types of intellectual property protection are Patents, Trade Marks, Designs, Copyrights and Geographical Indications.
Read More..>>Licensing Your Copyrighted Works
Posted on March 25, 2008 - Filed Under Legal and Law | Leave a Comment
If you’ve taken the necessary steps to register your copyrighted works, you inevitably will have an opportunity to royalties off of them. To take advantage of the opportunity, you will need to be familiar with copyright license agreements.
Copyright License Agreement
A copyright license agreement sets for the terms under which a third party can use your content. In legal language, you will the “licensor” with the other party being the “licensee.” The purpose of the agreement is to set forth the terms under which you, the licensor, will grant the third party, licensee, the right to use, publish or reuse your copyrighted work in exchange for a royalty. Let’s take a closer look at key components of the licensing agreement.
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