What are copyrights, registered trademarks, and patents?

by Gord Hooker

Intellection Property is a topic that few entrepreneurs consider and even fewer truly understand, but it can have important ramifications for your company. Like many forms of property, intellectual property (or IP, as it’s often abbreviated as) has value, and like anything of value, you must take precautions to protect it.

Copyrights, registered trademarks, and patents are all measures taken to protect a different type of intellectual property. The purpose of this article is to define each of these measures and discuss how you implement them.

Copyrights

A copyright gives the author of an original work exclusive right for a certain time period in relation to that work, including its publication, distribution and adaptation, after which time the work is said to enter the public domain. Copyright applies to any expressible form of an idea or information that is substantive and discrete and fixed in a medium. (Source: Wikipedia).

Copyrights do not need to be registered, you need only display the copyright symbol to assert copyright, and be able to prove you are the author of the work. In the book publishing world, the common practice is to submit copies to the national library of the country of origin. A second simple method is to seal a copy of the work and then mail it to yourself. As long as there is a dated postmark on the package, and the seal is unbroken, it could be used in court to prove your ownership. There are also services online that can help assert copyright.

Trademarks

A trademark is a distinctive sign or indicator used by an individual, business organization, or other legal entity to identify that the products or services to consumers with which the trademark appears originate from a unique source, and to distinguish its products or services from those of other entities. In other words, a trademark should exclusively identify the commercial source or origin of products or services.

Trademarks can be registered or unregistered, as distinguished by the symbol ® for registered trademark, or ™ for an unregistered trademark. An owner of a registered trademark can commence legal proceedings to prevent unauthorized use of its trademark. An unregistered or common law trademark still offers similar protection, though that protection may only extend to geographical areas where the owner operates or would be reasonably expected to operate in the future. (Source: Wikipedia)

Patents

The term patent usually refers to a right granted to anyone who invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, article of manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof. A patent is a set of exclusive rights granted by a state (national government) to an inventor or his assignee for a limited period of time in exchange for a public disclosure of an invention.

A patent is requested by filing a written application at the relevant patent office. The application contains a description of how to make and use the invention that must provide sufficient detail for a person skilled in the art (i.e., the relevant area of technology) to make and use the invention.

The application also includes one or more claims, although it is not always a requirement to submit these when first filing the application. The claims set out what the applicant is seeking to protect in that they define what the patent owner has a right to exclude others from making, using, or selling, as the case may be. In other words, the claims define what a patent covers or the “scope of protection”.

After filing, an application is often referred to as “patent pending.” While this term does not confer legal protection, and a patent cannot be enforced until granted, it serves to provide warning to potential infringers that if the patent is issued, they may be liable for damages.

For a patent to be granted, that is to take legal effect in a particular country, the patent application must meet the patentability requirements of that country. Most patent offices examine the application for compliance with these requirements. If the application does not comply, objections are communicated to the applicant or their patent agent or attorney and one or more opportunities to respond to the objections to bring the application into compliance are usually provided. (Source: Wikipedia)