You should have an attorney available as a part of your business team to help you with the complexities of intellectual property law. However, you are responsible to at least have a basic understanding of your intellectual property rights, and you can do some of the legal work on your own. The three main areas you should familiarize yourself with are:
- trademarks
- patent law
- copyright law
Trademarks
Trademarks allow the public to distinguish
the goods or services of one person from the next. The purpose of
trademarks is to protect the public from confusion as to where a
service or product comes from. For example, if you only like to buy
Kellogg's cereal, then you'd hate buying another cereal named
"Kellogg's" if it's not the same thing. Likewise, as a business owner,
you may want to get a trademark for your business so that no one buys
from your competitor, thinking that they're buying from you. If you
own the trademark, only you can use that name or tagline. To get a
trademark, you can register it with the state where you conduct
business and/or federally with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
Where you register your trademark depends on various factors, including
whether you plan to use the trademark locally or nationally.
Patent Law
When
you patent an invention, you get many rights including the right to
exclude someone else from making it or offering it for sale in the
United States. In order to patent your invention, you must file an
application with the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office. Patent law
requires that you include "claims" in your application, which are
numbered paragraphs describing your invention. After your application
is filed, there is a period of time referred to as "prosecution" where
other individuals or companies can raise objections to your patent
application. Others may object because your invention is too similar to
theirs or part of your invention uses their invention, and therefore
they'll want you to change your patent claims. If you are successful in
getting a patent, you can generate income by selling the invention
outright, or by giving single or multiple companies permission to sell
it. This is known as licensing.
Copyright Law
You
own the copyright to all original works the moment you create them. You
should follow up with a copyright registration if you want to be able
to protect your work in court. Some laws will not allow you certain
remedies without a copyright registration. You can copyright both
published and unpublished work by filling out a copyright registration
with the Library of Congress. It's important to know that copyrights
protect the expression of an idea, but not the underlying idea. For
example, if you develop a membership website, and your competitor does
the same thing but in a slightly different way, both of you can
copyright your websites separately and both will be valid. Like
patents, you can generate income from your copyrights yourself, or you
can license them to others.
You don't have to register your
trademarks, copyrights or patents to be considered the owner of your
works. However, doing so will solve many legal problems, especially in
the area of intellectual property. Be sure to develop a savings plan
for these if the registration costs are too high for you.
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Daphne Mallory, Esq. is the co-owner of Mallory Writing Services and has written more than 100 articles helping home based business owners and entrepreneurs start and market their business. You can learn more about her here.