An Easy Explanation on the Importance of Trademarks, Copyright, and Patents
Trademark, patents and copyright
Many are confused on what copyright, patent and trademark is all about. People tend to neglect the importance of these things. First of all, when you start your own business, you should have a trademark for your business.
A trademark is a kind of symbol or logo that you put in your products to distinguish it from other products made by other companies. For example, if you are in the apparel business, you should have a unique trademark for your clothes, shoes and pants. By having your own trademark, you can be sure that your clients will know what they are buying.
If you made a new building design, or if you composed a song or poet, you have to copyright it in order to prevent it from being used without your permission. By copyrighting your songs, your architectural designs, or your documents, you can be sure that it will make it illegal to be used by other people without your permission. It is important that you should copyright your documents in order to prevent others from profiting from it. For example, if you composed a new song and were a hit with the public and you didn’t copyright it, you will see that someone else will claim that they wrote the song and will prevent you from using the song without their permission.
The same thing goes in patenting an invention. By patenting a particular invention, you can make sure that you will have absolute right for it and claim it as yours where no one will be authorized to copy it. Patenting, copyrighting and trademarks are all in the intellectual property law. You have to consider that this law is made to provide protection on intellectual property and is a special branch of the law that requires a special kind of lawyer.
Trademark registration, patenting, and copyrighting are all handled by the United States Patent and Trademark Office or PTO. The PTO is responsible for patenting all kinds of inventions and they are also responsible for registering trademarks and copyrighting. If you recently invented a new kind of gadget which is original and fully functional on its purpose, you can apply for a patent. By patenting your invention, you can be sure that no one else will be able to claim the invention as theirs. However, you have to consider that patenting an invention will take a lot of time and will cost a lot of money. This is why you should be financially prepared for it. You should also consider the fact that you will need a patent and trademark lawyer for it to represent you during the entire process of patenting your invention.
You have to consider that the patenting process is a complex process which deals with the intellectual property law. You will also need a lot of requirements for it, such as a prototype of your invention that you need to demonstrate with the PTO. The PTO will determine whether it can be approved or rejected of patenting.
In the trademark registration process, you have to present your trademark symbol to the PTO. Although the process for trademark registration is shorter than patenting an invention, you have to consider that it will also take some time. You will need to present a minimum requirement, such as a trademark design and your business registration. Once you have the minimum requirements needed to file for trademark registration, the next step is by letting a PTO lawyer examine the trademark and determine whether it bears a resemblance with other kinds of trademarks that is already registered.
There are specific grounds for approval and refusal of trademark where the PTO lawyer will base their decisions. If your trademark symbol contains a lot of similarities with other trademark symbol that is already registered, it will usually be refused.
These are the basics in patent, copyright and trademarks. As you can see, it is very important to get your inventions, your architectural designs and trademark logo registered with the PTO to protect it from being used without your permission or get it stolen and be claimed by other people.
So, the next time you successfully invented something or you have a new business trademark symbol, or if you wrote a new song or designed a new building, get it patented, copyrighted or registered in the PTO immediately.
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Your comment is in error regarding copyright, certainly in Australia and New Zealand and I suspect in most countries.
Copyright exists as soon as you create a ‘document’ (read any sort of work including computer programs) and doesn’t require you to act in any way to “copyright it” as you suggest. There is no registration process and using the (c) mark only provides a clearer indication that it is indeed copyright.
There is no registry of copyright documents and the process is that should the author of that document suspect that someone has breached the copyright of his or her document, then it is up to the author to pursue it under the copyright law of the country. The author can simply ask the offended to cease and desist and if they don’t then take legal action.
The onus is on the author or owner of the document – note that copyright can transfer to another party and although may initially vest in the author, it may be purchased from the author or indeed the contract for the creation of the document may determine the owner is the client of the autohr from the beginning.
Patent is another story and as you suggest is a process of verification and registration of the item, not necessarily a document (in the broadest sense) at all.
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