How to Make Sure Your Ideas Remain Yours

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A Quick Overview of Intellectual Property Rights

Do you remember when Taylor Swift got sued for copyright infringement by a group named 3LW? How about when the Beatles sued Apple over a trademark dispute? Or who could forget when Barbie sued the Bratz because a toy maker changed jobs?
All of these were cases brought to court because someone felt their intellectual property was stolen or infringed upon.

What is intellectual property?

In its most basic form, intellectual property is any work or product that is the result of creativity.

Be it Tay’s lyrics, Apple’s empiric dreams, or a line of unrealistically proportioned children’s toys, all of these are considered creative products that someone else thought of first. Or said they did.
Intellectual property can be divided into four different categories. Let’s take a quick look at each one, and just to be clear, I’m pulling the definitions from dictionary.com so I don’t get accused of stealing anyone else’s work.

  1.     A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention.
  2.     A trademark is a type of intellectual property consisting of a recognizable sign, design, or expression that identifies products or services from a particular source and distinguishes them from others.
  3.     A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time.
  4.     Trade secrets are a type of intellectual property that includes formulas, practices, processes, designs, instruments, patterns, or compilations of information that have inherent economic value because they are not generally known or readily ascertainable by others, and which the owner takes reasonable measures to keep secret.

 

If you’re a creative professional, it would be wise to protect your valuable assets, be they soul-wrenching lyrics, world-changing algorithms, or artwork created by a pet wolf you domesticated and taught to do macrame, your ideas belong to you, and we can help you protect them. Give us a call for a free consultation.

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