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Category : Law and Taxation |
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Article:
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IP Law and Business
When we speak of IP law, we are referring to 'Intellectual Property' Law. This law has undergone many changes in the last few years. As a businessman/woman, one must be aware of this law, and how it affects the nature of the business. The main focus of IP laws is the intangible and tangible rights of a person/business, to use particular trademarks, patents and copyrights and to sell and produce goods or services. Also falling under the cover of IP laws, are the transfer rights of ideas and the compensatory rights for using these ideas through licensing fees.
Intellectual Property
Before we understand IP laws, it is important to know what intellectual property actually is. Intellectual property simply refers to the work of the mind/intellect such as an idea, invention, trade secret, process, program, data, or formula, etc. It is usually intangible but is treated as tangible by the courts and the law. Things like books, song lyrics, poems, catch phrases, etc, are also intellectual property.
IP law and business
Knowing about IP laws are extremely essential these days, as many people often try to take credit for the ideas/thoughts of others. It is important to copyright, patent, or trade mark your work, so that you are the exclusive owner of it, and no one else can have access to it, but you. Works such as books, movies, music, paintings, photographs and software etc are copyrighted, while inventions usually get a patent. Trademarks are obtained for distinctive logos, words or catchy phrases, while for secret/confidential information about certain processes etc, trade secrets are a great way to protect your ideas.
Also know that the owner of a trade mark, copyright, patent or trade secret has exclusive rights to his/her own intellectual property. This means that one can actually prevent some one or some third party, such as a business from using his or her ideas or thoughts. For example, if one has registered his or her logo, then he or she will have exclusive rights to that logo. No one will ever be able to either alter, or use that logo, except the person having exclusive rights to it. However, if one wishes to license out his or her logo, or rent it to anyone who wishes to use it, he would be free to do so at his or her own will. He could mortgage the logo to a third party business as well.
Below are the 3 most commonly known IP laws that most businesses use:
Copyright Laws
Copyrights are granted by the federal government. Anyone who wishes for their work to be copyrighted, must prove that the work is originally 100% theirs, and no one else's. Your work can be copyrighted even if it has not been published or even registered.
The main thing that a business or an individual has to do, to get a copyright, is to prove the work is originally theirs. This following is a copy right ©, and if it is used next to something, you need the author's permissions to reproduce or reprint it, in its original form. Literary works; musical works; dramatic works; choreography; pictorial, graphic, or sculptural works; movies and other audiovisual works; and architectural works can all be copyrighted.
Patent laws
Patents are usually granted to inventors. What one needs to understand, is the fact that, patents do not protect the idea. Rather, they protect the invention itself, and the methods used to create the invention. There are 3 kinds of patents granted by the federal government; utility patents, design patents and plant patents. The last patent refers to patenting plants, such as new breeds of flowers, trees, etc. A patent thus basically gives the inventor the right to forbid others from 'making, using or offering for sale' anything that s/he has invented or created.
Trade mark laws
A trademark can be anything such as a word, logo, name, symbol, device or a combination of the above mentioned, that is used in commerce or trade. A trademark is basically a brand name. For example the trade mark of Nike is its ever recognizable 'swoosh'. While many think the purpose of a trade mark, is to protect the rights of the company, it is in actually protecting the rights of the consumer. It does this by protecting the consumer from the likelihood of confusion.
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