What Distinguishes Patents From Trademarks And Copyrights?
Patents, copyrights and trademarks are various aspects of the same central idea. These are forms of intellectual property that protect the rights of inventors and creators. However, these three have some significant differences.
The first and foremost difference is that the patents safeguard rights over a concrete or conceptual invention, while the copyrights secure documents or images created by the author. On the contrary, trademark does not always have to be innovative, as it can include any word or logo that can identify a product.
Secondly, patents have strictly defined liabilities, which provide the maximum safety against any sort of violation. This is to say that even if the offender has no real knowledge of the infringement, he will be held responsible for the same. Hence, patents offer a lot more safety than other forms of IPRs without any scope for considerations like fair use and other such provisions.
A patent is normally valid for only twenty years and then it moves from exclusive ownership of the owner, to the public domain availability of the idea. On the other hand, trademarks continue for an infinite duration while copyrights are valid for 60-70 years from the date of creation of that work. Moreover, patents have the ability to protect your interests in a much more comprehensive way. In other words, a copyright protects the mere expression of ideas, whereas patents can protect the underlying principles and techniques behind the invention as well.
Finally, since there are varying levels of protection provided for by these three IPR types, the process for submitting an application for them is also very different from each other. For example, the application for a patent needs intricate description of the invention, which is not needed in case of copyrights or trademarks. However, a copyright usually requires a replica of the original work, while a trademark requires a prior check for similar marks in existence in the market.
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