THE IMPORTANCE OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

Intellectual property is any product of human intellect that is intangible but has value in the marketplace. It is called "intellectual" property because it is the product of human imagination, creativity, and inventiveness. A company's intellectual assets are the most valuable. Intellectual property is also an important part of our nation's issue. 

"There is so much of our economy that is linked to branded products, patented products, copyrights. So much of our economy thrives on creativity." -Carlos Gutierrez-

Determining What Intellectual Property to Legally Protect

Two primary rules of thumb for deciding if intellectual property protection should be pursued for a particular intellectual asset :

↪ a firm should determine if the intellectual property in question is directly related to its competitive advantage.

↪ determine whether an item has value in the marketplace.

The Four Key Forms of Intellectual Property

Intellectual property laws exist to encourage creativity and innovation by granting individuals who risk their time and money in creative endeavors exclusive rights to the fruits of their labors for a period of time.

👀 PATENTS

A patent is a grant from the federal government conferring the rights to exclude others from making, selling, or using an invention for the term of the patent. A patent owner can legally make or sell the patented invention only if no other patents are infringed on by doing so.

👉 Types of Patents

Utility Patents :

cover what we generally think of as new inventions. Patents in this category may be granted to anyone who "invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof." The term of a utility patent is 20 years from the date of the initial application. A utility patent cannot be obtained for an "idea" or a "suggestion" for a new product or process. Recently, utility patent law has added business method patents, which have been of particular interest to internet firms. A business method patent is a patent that protects an invention that is or facilitates a method of doing business.

Design Patents :

cover the invention of new, original, and ornamental designs for manufactured products. A design patent is good for 14 years from the grant date. As long as each new design is considered by the United States Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO) to be novel and non obvious, it is eligible for design patent protection.

Plant Patents : 

protect new varieties of plants that can be reproduced asexually. These patents provide essential protection for companies specializing in plant genetics and related areas. The term for plant patent protection is 20 years from the date of the original application.

👉 Who Can Apply for a Patent?

Only the inventor of a product can apply for a patent. If an invention is made during the course of the inventor's employment, the employer typically is assigned the right to apply for the patent through an assignment of invention agreement signed by the employee as part of the employment agreement.

👉 The Process of Obtaining a Patent

make sure the invention is practical ⇨ determine the type of application to file ⇨ hire a patent attorney ⇨ conduct a patent search ⇨ file a patent application ⇨ obtain decision from USPTO

👉 Patent Infringement

Patent infringement takes place when one party engages in the unauthorized use of another party's patent. The tough part about patent infringement cases is that they are costly to litigate, which puts start-up firms and their entrepreneurs at quite a disadvantage.

👀 TRADEMARKS

A trademark is any word, name, symbol, or device used to identify the source or origin of products or services and to distinguish those products or services from others. Trademark are used to promote and advertise tangible products.

👉 The Four Types of Trademarks and type of marks covered

1. Trademark
   ⤹ any word, name, symbol, or device used to identify and distinguish one company's goods from another. Examples: Apple, d.light, GoPro, DripCatch
2. Service mark
   ⤹ similar to trademarks, are used to identify the services or intangible activities of a business, rather than a business's physical products. Examples: eBay, Amazon.com, Dropbox
3. Collective mark
   ⤹ trademarks or service marks used by the members of a cooperative, association, or other collective group. Examples: Information Technology Industry Council, International Franchise Association
4. Certification mark
   ⤹ marks, words, names, symbols, or devices used by a person other than its owner to certify a particular quality about a good or service. Examples: Florida Oranges, National Organic Program

👉 What Is Protected Under Trademark Law?

🔼 words

🔼 numbers and letters

🔼 designs or logos

🔼 sounds

🔼 fragrances

🔼 shapes

🔼 colors

🔼 trade dress

Trademark protection is very broad and provides many opportunities for businesses to differentiate themselves from one another.

👉 Exclusions from Trademark Protection

🔽 Immoral or scandalous matter

🔽 Deceptive matter (example: a food company couldn't register the name "Fresh Florida Oranges" if the oranges weren't from Florida.)

🔽 Descriptive marks (example: an entrepreneur couldn't design a new type of golf ball and try to obtain trademark protection on the words golf ball.

🔽 Surnames

👉 The Process of Obtaining a Trademark

💥Select an appropriate mark
1. a mark, whether it is a name, logo, design, or fragrance, should display creativity and strength.

2. words that create a favorable impression about a product or service are helpful.

💥 Perform a trademark search

1. self searches to hiring a firm specializing in trademark clearance checks.

2. the USPTO's website provides a powerful trademark search engine at www.uspto.gov/trademarks. The USPTO's search engine only searches trademarks that are registered.

Adopting a trademark without conducting a trademark search is risky If a mark is challenged as an infringement, a company may have to destroy all its goods that bear the mark and then select new mark.

💥 Create rights in the trademark

👀 COPYRIGHTS

A copyright is a form of intellectual property protection that grants to the owner of a work of authorship the legal right to determine how the work is used and to obtain the economic benefits from the work.
👉 What Is Protected by a Copyright?
🔼 literary works (books, poetry, speeches, etc. Characters found in literary works are protectable if they possess a high degree of distinctive, example: Garfield.)
🔼 musical compositions (musical score, CD, or an MP3 file. The owner of the copyright is usually the composer and possibly a lyricst.)
🔼 computer software (all forms of computer programs are protected.)
🔼 dramatic works (comedy routine, newscast, movie, TV show)
🔼 pantomimes and choreographic works (copyright laws in these areas protect ballets, dance movements, and mime works.)
🔼 pictorial, graphic, and sculptural works
👉 Exclusion from Copyright Protection
1. copyright laws cannot protect ideas
2. facts, titles, and lists of ingredients
👉 How to Obtain a Copyright
⚀ copyright protection can be enhanced for anything written by attaching the copyright notice, or "copyright bug". The bug - a "c" inside a circle - typically appears in the following form: firs year of publication / author or copyright owner.
⚁ registering a work with the U.S. Copyright Office. Filling a simple form and depositing one or two samples of the work with the U.S. Copyright Office completes the registration process.
👉 Copyright Infringement
Copyright infringement occurs when one work derives from another, is an exact copy, or shows substantial similarity to the original work. To Prove infringement, a copyright owner is required to show that the alleged infringement had prior access to the copyrighted work and that the work is substantially similar to the owner's.
👉 Copyright and the Internet
Anyone who downloads material from the Internet and uses it for personal purposes should be cautious and realize that copyright laws are just as applicable for material on the Internet as they are for material purchased from a bookstore or borrowed from a library. There are a number of techniques available for entrepreneurs and webmasters to prevent unauthorized material from being copied from a website: password protecting the portion of a site, selected use of encryption, digital watermarking, and digital fingerprinting.

Trade Secrets
A trade secret is any formula, pattern, physical device, idea, process, or other information that provides the owner of the information with a competitive advantage in the marketplace. It include marketing plans, product formulas, financial forecasts, employee rosters, logs of sales calls, and laboratory notebooks. Trade secret are governed by a patchwork of various state laws. The federal Economic Espionage Act does criminalize the theft of trade secrets.
♧ What Qualifies for Trade Secret Protection?
The strongest case for trade secret protection is information that is characterized by the following:
➥ is not known outside the company
➥ is known only inside the company on a "need-to-know" basis
➥ is safeguarded by stringent efforts to keep the information confidential
➥ is valueable and provides the company a compelling competitive advantage
➥ was developed at great cost, time, and effort
➥ cannot be easily duplicated, reverse engineered, or discovered
 ♧ Trade Secret Disputes
Trade secret arise most frequently when an employee leaves a firm to join a competitor and is accused of taking confidential information along. The key factor in winning a trade secret dispute is that some type of theft or misappropriation must have taken place.
♧ Trade Secret Protection Methods
Firms protect their trade secrets through both physical measures (that include restricting access, labeling documents, password protecting, computer files, maintaining logbooks for visitors, and maintaining adequate overall security measures) and written arguments.

Conducting an Intellectual Property Audit
An intellectual property audit is conducted to determine the intellectual property a company owns.
◈ Why Conduct an Intellectual Property Audit?
First, it is prudent for a company to periodically determine whether its intellectual property is being properly protected. The second reason is to remain prepared to justify its value in the event of a merger or acquisition.
◈ The Process of Conducting an Intellectual Property Audit

1. develop an inventory of a firm's existing intellectual property.
2. identify works in progress to ensure that they are being documented in a systematic, orderly manner.
3. specify the firm's key trade secrets and describe how they are being protected.