the difference between copyrights, patents, and trademarks?
102150
The other poster was right about some things but misspoke about others. This is best answered by the USPTO themselves:\n\nWhat Is a Patent?\n\nA patent for an invention is the grant of a property right to the inventor, issued by the Patent and Trademark Office. The term of a new patent is 20 years from the date on which the application for the patent was filed in the United States or, in special cases, from the date an earlier related application was filed, subject to the payment of maintenance fees. US patent grants are effective only within the US, US territories, and US possessions.\n\nThe right conferred by the patent grant is, in the language of the statute and of the grant itself, “the right to exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, or selling” the invention in the United States or “importing” the invention into the United States. What is granted is not the right to make, use, offer for sale, sell or import, but the right to exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, selling or importing the invention.\n\nWhat Is a Trademark or Servicemark?\n\nA trademark is a word, name, symbol or device which is used in trade with goods to indicate the source of the goods and to distinguish them from the goods of others. A servicemark is the same as a trademark except that it identifies and distinguishes the source of a service rather than a product. The terms "trademark" and "mark" are commonly used to refer to both trademarks and servicemarks.\n\nTrademark rights may be used to prevent others from using a confusingly similar mark, but not to prevent others from making the same goods or from selling the same goods or services under a clearly different mark. Trademarks which are used in interstate or foreign commerce may be registered with the Patent and Trademark Office. The registration procedure for trademarks and general information concerning trademarks is described in a separate pamphlet entitled "Basic Facts about Trademarks".\n\nWhat Is a Copyright?\n\nCopyright is a form of protection provided to the authors of “original works of authorship” including literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, and certain other intellectual works, both published and unpublished. The 1976 Copyright Act generally gives the owner of copyright the exclusive right to reproduce the copyrighted work, to prepare derivative works, to distribute copies or phonorecords of the copyrighted work, to perform the copyrighted work publicly, or to display the copyrighted work publicly.\n\nThe copyright protects the form of expression rather than the subject matter of the writing. For example, a description of a machine could be copyrighted, but this would only prevent others from copying the description; it would not prevent others from writing a description of their own or from making and using the machine. Copyrights are registered by the Copyright Office of the Library of Congress.\n*********************************************************\nRE: Trademarks -- Their use is not indefinite as long as you continue to use the mark. There are deadlines to pay attention to -- between the 5th & 6th year of registration as well as at the 10 yr, 20 yr, 30 yr etc \n\nRE: Copyrights -- Yes, a copyright comes into existence once something is in a "fixed, tangible form," however, registering your copyright provides you with many rights that should be considered.\n\nHope that helps! I wish you much success & happiness in all your ventures!
616471
The basic function of a trademark is to exclude others from using your product, service, etc when they do not have your permission. There are state and federal forms of trademark protection that provide varying levels of protection, cost, and paperwork.  Moreover, there are different protections, for example a product (a trademark) versus a service (a servicemark). \n\nYahoo provides a small business guide to help answer your initial questions. Further, the US Patent & Trademark Office should be able to explain costs and fees associated with their different federal registrations. You will need to check your own state government for costs and fees associated with state filings.\n\nYou should speak with an intellectual property attorney about the specifics of trademarks for your business.  Only s/he can truly help you 1) analyze what the costs and benefits would be for your specific company and 2) develop a cost effective strategy.\n\nYour local bar association will help you find an attorney.  Moreover, check the attorney's experience rating and background on Martindale.
261951
Yes.  \n\nFor starters, law at least has to define those things which it covers, eg patents, trademarks, houses, shops.\n\nAlready, I suspect you have seen A difference above.  \n\nPatent law will give definitions of exactly what can, and can't be protected by a patent.\n\nProperty law, will define what a building is, the different types, what you can do with them, where you can build them, etc.
482442
Can you register it?  Yes, probably.  Will it do you any good?  Maybe not.\n\nBecause both products are software products, the other company could legitimately come after you.  Trademark classifications are generally done by the product or service itself, rather than by the industry of its likely users.  The key measure of whether your trademark is too close to someone else's is basically, "Is there any chance that a potential customer might be confused?"  Just the likelihood of confusion is enough to justify a claim of trademark infringement.\n\nI would consider contacting the other company before you start using a similar trademark.  If you can explain to them how your software is different and what steps you're willing to take to help avoid confusion, there is a good chance that they will agree to a contract with you that lays out your rights and theirs.  The contract should contain an "agreement not to sue", which is pretty common in trademark work.  That provision could require, for example, that the other company will not sue to enforce its trademark against you as long as you don't stray into its business-area.  Instead, you can agree to submit any disagreements to private arbitration, which is much cheaper than a lawsuit in federal court ($50k and up just to go to trial!) and which can be kept confidential.\n\nYour "hardball" position with the other company, in case they don't want to give you a contract not to sue, could be that you're going to use the disputed word, etc., in a way that will make it very clear that you're a different company selling a different product, which weakens their chances against you, and they would be faced with the cost and bother of taking you to court if they disagree.  You should know, though, that this would be a risky route.  Trademark cases are often settled at a preliminary, pre-trial stage, because just getting a temporary injunction forcing you to stop work can be a death-blow for most companies.  Add damages and attorney's fees (yours and theirs, if you lose!), and you're looking at an ugly gamble.\n\nI'd recommend using a locally licensed attorney who specializes in trademarks.  General practice attorneys usually don't know much about this area's tricky bits.  I hope that helps.  Good luck.
1004615
The ™ symbol is to be used for marks that either have a pending trademark application OR for marks that are simply claiming the rights to the mark.\n\nThe ® symbol is to be used for marks that have a Federally registered trademark.\n\nTrademarks can be names of products or services, logos, slogans, packaging and even sounds and smells. In essence, a trademark can be almost anything that is used to identify a particular product or service. Registering a trademark grants the owner exclusive rights to the mark within the specified industry. Of course, it's necessary to research the mark comprehensively prior to filing to ensure that there is no possibility of infringing upon another party. \n\nAnd to be sure to clear this issue up...\n\nThe © symbol is used to denote copyright ownership.\n\nCopyrights can be obtained for things of an artistic nature. This includes, of course, poetry, films, sculptures, music, fiction, etc. But can also include things that may not necessarily seem "artistic" in the general sense of the word. Copyrights can also be obtained for advertising copy, games, software programs and blueprints, to name just a few. \n\nI posted some links below in case you wanted to know more. Hope that helps!
968392
Do not listen to those other people in what they responded. They have no clue. First of all, if it is a product (not like music etc..) you may want to seek PATENT protection, not copyright protection. Go get a couple hundred bucks and go speak to a PATENT ATTORNEY. You are going to have to pay for a professional opinion, one way or another.
599599
You would have to apply for the trademark with the Patent and Trademark office.\n\nwww.uspto.gov\n\nIf it is only a name and not a service associated with it, you don't have need for a trademark but may want a copyright. Check them out at www.copyright.gov
633914
Copyright is free, and instant.  However, you cannot normally copyright a name or slogan (you may sometimes be able to copyright a slogan, but you would need a lawyer to tell you when you can and when you can not).\n\nWhat you need to do in these cases is usually to Trademark the item - almost always the name, and usually the slogan.  To do this, you can file on-line with the US Government at \n\nhttp://www.uspto.gov/teas/e-TEAS/ \n\nHowever, rules can be complicated, and you should verify before going through the process that the trademark is not already registered.  To be thorough, you could expend a lot of time, or you could submit through a trademark lawyer or service.  The lawyer will, however, cost you more.\n\nA trademark is in some ways more limited than a copyright, and in some ways more strict.  For example, a trademark will never die away automatically, but copyright will be removed from an item after some time has passed (usually over a hundred years).  \n\nBut if you have a copyright on something, then no one can use that without getting your permission (with limited exceptions written into the law).  However, trademarks are only good within a certain "class" of items.  Thus, you could call your new Tennis Racket the "Thunderbird" (TM), even though the Thunderbird car has been around for a long time, because cars and tennis rackets do not fall in the same class.\n\nUSPTO Filing fees for a trademark run from $275 to $325 per class of items, depending on the form used to file (one has stricter requirements, so you must do more work, but you save $50).
1172964
You need to buy a patent. A copyright would only be available (and would be automatic and free) if your invention had artistic qualities.
512432
there are mainly two kinds of patents- Process Patent (Indian patent) and Product patent(international/US) patent.\n\nProcess patent allows anybody to market any product which is manufactured by a process different than what is patented. Say one company has patented the tea formulation and the process is water+tea+sugar+milk. Now, another company can use any other way (water+sugar+milk+tea) of making tea and market it without giving royalty to the first company.\n\nOn the other hand, product patent ensures that if any any patented product is mfg/marketed by any company (other than the company who patented it), it gives royalty to the company who patented the product/mfg technique.\nThat is why medicines which are cheaper in India as they don't have to pay royalty to the companies who mfg it.
626044
Registered, copyright and trademark.  They all mean that the product or name cannot legally be used by another company.
241015
Intellectual property refers to an author's or inventor's rights to their book/invention. Intellectual Property Management refers to the protection of those rights through the copyright and patent process. For example, a large research and development company would own quite a bit of intellectual property being used in varied fields and countries. They would probably have several Intellectual Property Managers to handle all the copyright and patent issues related to their property.
71282
Copyrights protect people's creativity from infringement and piracy. Copyrights guarantee that your creativity can never be attributed to someone else other than you, it also gives you the right to introduce your work to the public for the first time and the right to prvent others from modifying your work in a way that would spoil your reputation or goodwill as a writer. Copyrights entitles the holder of the right to receive reasonable royalties from anyone who exploits his creativity. The financial rights associated with copyrights in the United States lsat for the lifetime of the holder of the right and 100 years after his death.\nYou can learn more about copyrights from the website of the World Intellectual Property Organization www.wipo.org
217720
You will get info about US patents on www.uspto.gov.\n\nHowever, the process of patenting is fairly costly and time consuming. Not every invention---even though they are good---is worth patenting. The main criteria generally used to  determine whether it is worth going through the hassle of patenting are: \n\n1) Is your invention important? In other words, do people care about the problem your invention solves? If not, then no one will pay to license the invention.\n\n2) Is your invention sufficiently different from the "prior art"? Here prior art implies both things that are generally known and things that have previously been patented. You cannot patent and invention that is already known in prior art. Moreover, if there is a prior patent that is very close to your invention, you might be a target of costly patent infringement law-suits (where only lawyers makes money). However, note that the legal standard of "sufficiently different" is sometimes ridiculously low (it seems that Microsoft owns a patent on "double click"!)..\n\nThe above two were more obvious items. The less obvious points to consider are:\n\n3) How easy it is to bypass the invention and obtain the same result? If a competitor can do a small change and get the same result, your patent would not worth much.\n\n4) How easy it is to detect patent infringement? I.e., can you detect if someone else is using methods that violate your patent rights? This is important because you cannot expect your competitors to come to you and give you money just because you hold the patent! They will try to bypass and possibly infringe. So it will be your responsibility to detect infringement and bring law-suits.\n\nIn many cases, it is actually simpler to "protect" your invention by publicly disclosing it (and hence preventing anyone else from patenting). You also get an advantage of being an "early bird" and hopefully produce the outcome before your competition and get the market.\n\nFor India, I do not know how effective patent laws are in preventing patent-infringements---my guess is that it is not much. In that case, you might perhaps consider keeping your invention as a trade-secret; i.e., not disclose at all. This makes sense if no one else can copy the concept by buying your product: i.e., if reverse-engineering is difficult/impossible. The formula for Coca-Cola is a good example of a trade-secret.
222866
A patent is documentation of an invention or idea that allows the inventor to develop and market his or her idea without fear that someone else will be able to steal it and use it without crediting or paying the inventor.\n\nUnited States patents may be found on the United States Patent Office (USPTO) website.  Patents from 1976 and onward are fully searchable.  Prior to that, they are only viewable by U.S. Patent Classification or Patent Number.\n\nThe actual patent applications (or patent sheets) are viewable as TIF images so a browser plug-in will be required as most browsers don't normally read that image format.  The USPTO website has instructions and links on how to find these plug-ins.
11345
In the United States (and the law is similar in most countries), it isn't copyright that you need to worry about. Single words and titles aren't copywrited.  However, the word "entmoot" from the Lord of the Rings is probably subject to trademark protections, even though it may not be registered as a trademark.  The law can be complicated, and many tests are applied, but the basic question asked in trademark is whether the mark (in this "entmoot") is associated with the previous user and could cause confusion in a customer when the customer sees it used by the new user. That is, would someone buying a product with "entmoot" in the title assume that the product is associated with Tolkien/ Lord of the Rings because of the word.  I think they probably would, myself.\n\nThe US Trademark Office and Copyright Office have some useful information online if you want to pursue the question.  http://www.uspto.gov/main/faq/index.html
13022
I need more info to answer this question. IF you are only taking NIVERSI from the word UNIVERSITY, well then you are OK because no one owns the word UNIVERSITY in any field. If trademarked as part of an educational service name, then you will find the USPTO will require you to disclaim UNIVERSITY. Your use of NIVERSI is actually very distinctive! Now, you need a comprehensive search to see if there are other conflicts or similarities that really affect you. See trademarkexpress.com.