Types of Intellectual Property

If you are an inventor, the patent system helps to secure your exclusive right to an invention to the public. They help to prevent others from making, using, or selling your patented invention in the country where your patent was issued.

The invention to be patented must be something not publicly disclosed before, it must be novel or new. The invention should be a technical advanced; it should not be just an obvious extension or aggregation of known elements or previous inventions. Your invention should be useful or have real-world utility.

Once the patent application is published, it helps to promote your invention. You may license out your invention even if the patent right is not yet granted. This link provides a directory of world-wide intellectual property offices which grant patent rights to inventors.

If you choose not to patent an invention, you can take steps to keep and use your invention in secret. This kind of invention is known as trade secret and can be very critical to the success of your business.

Unlike patent, trademark and copyrighted works, there are no formal application or registration procedure for protecting trade secret. Instead, trade secret is protected by keeping it secret.

Protectable trade secret includes formulas, unpatented inventions and techniques, business and marketing plans intended for internal use which is particular and essential to the operation of your business.

Make sure to use nondisclosure agreements and confidentially provisions in license agreement to protect your trade secret. Once publicly disclosed, the value of your trade secrets can become zero.

You can obtain protection for the trademark on your product to show that the product is yours. The basic concept is to avoid confusion in the market by differentiating your products from other company’s product, even if they are essentially the same products.

To be registerable, your trademark must have distinctiveness, i.e. it is not merely describe the nature or function of your products, and it is not similar to the brand name of others’.

Once the trademark application is published, it helps to promote your brand. This link provides the directory of world-wide intellectual property offices which grant trademark rights to brand owners.

Copyrights are used to protect expressive works that have been authorized, such as literature, drama, music, and such things as choreographic, pictorial, and architectural works. Copyrights protect the expression of ideas by preventing strict copying of your work.

Copyright protection is also very important in the realm of technology, where it is used for computer software, firmware (microcode used in computer processors) and written materials, such as manuals and marketing brochures. To quality for protection a work it must be original to the author and fixed in a tangible medium of expression. It is not necessary to register your copyright with the Copyright Office to obtain protection.