Patents, Copyrights and Trademarks For Dummies

Henri J. A. Charmasson, John Buchaca

• Publisher: For Dummies
• Year: 2009
• ISBN:
  9780470507704
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Diritto
• Subtopic: Diritto sulla proprietà intellettuale

Useful tips and step-by-step guidance from filing to issue to license

Acquire and protect your share of this major business asset

Want to secure and exploit the intellectual property rights due you or your company? This easy-to-follow guide shows you how — helping you to evaluate your idea's commercial potential, conduct patent and trademark searches, document the invention process, license your IP rights, and comply with international laws. Plus, you get detailed examples of each patent application type!

Discover how to:

• Avoid application blunders
• Register trademarks and copyrights
• Meet patent requirements
• Navigate complex legal issues
• Protect your rights abroad

• The entire body of U.S. patent laws

• Example office actions and amendments
  
  

• Sample forms
  
  

• Trademark registration certificates
  
  

• Application worksheets
  
  

See the CD appendix for details and complete system requirements.

Note: CD-ROM/DVD and other supplementary materials are not included as part of eBook file.

Part I

Corralling Your IP Assets: Intellectual Property Basics

In this part . . .

If you’re reading this page, you probably have an invention, a creative work, a trademark, or some other piece of intellectual property that you want to guard against all the copycats out there. Well, you’ve come to the right place. In this part, we give you an overview of intellectual property (IP) in all its glory and tell you why protecting these assets is important. We map out each IP instrument — patents, copyrights, and commercial identifiers — showing how they each protect a different type of IP asset. We also talk about ways to treat your IP as a trade secret, by restricting access to information, using confidentiality agreements, and taking advantage of other tools at your disposal. And we discuss hiring an IP professional (when, why, and how), working effectively with an attorney or agent, and estimating how much the whole process can set you back.

Chapter 1

Marshalling Your IP Tools

In This Chapter

Understanding the difference between IP assets and IP rights

Perusing patents and what they can protect

Checking out copyrights and their applications

Taking a look at trademarks and related commercial names

Looking at trade secrets and their uses

Making money with your IP rights

Enforcing your IP rights in court

Welcome to the world of intellectual property — which is abbreviated IP. If you’ve created, invented, or named something that you’re selling, you already have intellectual property. And that property could be quite valuable. What if you’d invented the Segway scooter or written the first For Dummies book? Wouldn’t you like to be able to cash in on it? Exploiting your IP assets for your own financial gain and, at the same time, pursuing those who may infringe on your precious but fragile rights to those assets (called IP rights) is what this chapter and, in general, this book are all about.

Defining Intellectual Property

What is intellectual property? Although we’ve encountered many true and effective definitions — including information that has commercial value, a proprietary product of the mind, and things protected by patents, copyrights, and trademarks — none of them is quite complete. Here’s the one we like best:

Intellectual property is intangible creations of the mind that can be legally protected.

Because IP has no physical form, we can give you a better idea of what it is by providing examples of what it isn’t. Intellectual property is not

The new and wondrous machine that you developed in your garage, but the invention embodied in that machine.

The marvelously efficient cholesterol-reducing pill you see advertised on TV, but the formula and the process used in manufacturing that pill.

The physical portrait that an artist made of you, but the aesthetic expression of the artist’s talent reflected by the painting.

The riding mower you reluctantly start up every Saturday, but the brand name that embodies the reputation of the product and its manufacturer.

Now, if you’d be so kind as to refer back to our earlier, scintillating IP definition, we’d like to expand on it. Intellectual property is made up of two components: assets and rights.

Assets

IP assets are intangible creations, such as the invention, the formula and process, the expression of artist’s talents as reflected in a painting, and the brand name.

Rights

IP rights are the legal protections that secure each IP asset against its unauthorized use by others. One or more of the following legal protections can be used to secure IP rights:

Patents: Obtaining a patent protects the invention from outright thievery.

Trade secrets: Keeping a formula or manufacturing process confidential safeguards it against imitators.

Copyrights: Holding a copyright shields artistic expression against copying by others.

Trademarks: Adopting a trademark as a brand name keeps it and its market reputation yours and yours alone.

Contractual rights: Licensing the right to use someone else’s invention, for example, gives rights to the licensee while allowing the patent holder to profit from her invention through royalties.

A very short history of intellectual property

Although the origin of patents dates back to medieval Europe, the U.S. patent was invented by a bunch of short-breeched fellows in powdered wigs, mostly lawyers, who met in Philadelphia in the 1780s. However, incorporating IP into the laws of the United States was not a slam-dunk. Thomas Jefferson was viscerally opposed to all shades of monopolies, including patents. Ironically, our Jeffersonian Democracy was put in place in Philadelphia in the absence of the Sage of Monticello. At the time of the Constitutional Convention, Jefferson was minister plenipotentiary to France, busily courting the Parisian ladies (relax, by then he was a widower). It is rather Alexander Hamilton who deserves credit for including a patent and copyright clause in Article II of the U.S. Constitution.

Some IP rights — copyrights, trademark rights, and trade secrets in particular — attach themselves automatically upon the creation or use of the IP assets without your ever having to lift a finger or spend a cent. Obtaining other IP rights — patents, specifically — requires you to put up a pretty good fight and spend plenty of money.

What happens when you don’t protect your IP assets? Sorry, Charlie, but an unprotected IP asset is up for grabs — anyone can copy it, steal it, or change it for the worse (possibly damaging your good reputation). The bottom line is that your unprotected IP will fatten the bad guy’s bottom line.

But there’s more to IP assets and rights than mere talk of patents, copyrights, and trademarks, and that’s what this chapter is all about. First of all, you must verify that you in fact own that IP asset you want to protect, you have to make sure it’s original, and you must know how to secure all the IP rights that can apply to it. And last but not least, you have to know how to get the professional advice you need. Curtain, please.

Exploring the Patent Process

We may as well start with the most well-known (though not the most practical) form of IP protection: patents. A patent is a temporary legal right granted by the government as a reward for a unique invention, giving the inventor, for a few years, a way to keep others from stealing the fruits of his or her labor — the invention.

While we’re on...