Various Kinds Of Intellectual Property
When we talk about property, it is not only the tangible things such as homes, structures, land, currency etc that are protected by law. Other kinds of property which are non- material in form also exist. They are termed intellectual property and these are also protected by the law. The three main types of intellectual property rights are patents, trademarks and copyrights.
Copyrights are intellectual property pertaining to rights of the creator over his or her original creation. This right may be awarded for songs, films, videos and other types of creative expressions and not only the literary or published material. The copyright accords the sole right of ownership over the piece in question besides rights to get financial advantages resulting from the work.
Trademarks afford intellectual property privileges which aim at preventing duplication and violation of graphical representations registered by someone for his own products, and they help a customer easily tell the source of a product. They safeguard the trademark owners from being economically exploited by unscrupulous elements.
The third kind of intellectual property right, termed as patent, safeguards the rights of inventors in their novel and beneficial invention. A patent is valid for a predefined span and allows the holder exclusive right to use and commercially exploit his or her invention.
Some other, less often enforced intellectual property rights are also safeguarded by the law. Some examples of other kinds are traditional understanding cultivated by natives of a specific region that is distinctive only to that area; trade secrets that include business secrets, for example, KFC’s recipe; and positional pointers that are a variant of trademarks used for products arising from a specific part of the world, for instance Champagne.
Though these forms of intellectual property are separate from each other there are certain commonalities between the three. All three are fully admissible under the law and the rightful owner can take legal recourse to enforce his right and claim reparation for any misuse.
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Use Of Trademarks On The Internet
In this period of extensive internet use, trademark laws gain particular significance in cyberspace, particularly in terms of trademarks for domain names. A trademark becomes essential if your customers are going to recognize you and the products or services that you provide solely by your domain name.
The moment you are a trademark holder of a domain name, you can take legal action against a company for using a similar name and thus confusing people into believing that you, the genuine trademark owner, are in some way connected to their web site.
However, you need to do a comprehensive search for similar domain names in cyberspace before filing your trademark application, in order to prevent any violations. The research should investigate the existence of similar marks that have a close resemblance in appearance, pronunciation or meaning to the domain name you have chosen. It is vital to register a domain only after properly checking that it does not violate any trademarks.
For achieving this, it is advisable to hire the services of a cyber law practitioner, who can guide you in your online trademark related issues. This can greatly help in avoiding future disputes related to possible infringement.
You should take into consideration the fact that the domain name you are intending to trademark should be more than a mere web address to draw people to your site. It must be an identity that distinguishes your services from others.
Other than domain name infringement, there is a new menace of keyword infringement one the web. It basically means infringement of trademarks and their unlawful use as keywords through posting of online ads through advertisement services like Yahoo and Google, with the motive of puzzling the consumer.
If the online ads help in boosting the sales of the trademark owner, it is not a violation but the problem is created when the infringer starts making use of such ads for marketing his own goods for a commercial advantage.
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Considerations Before Filing A Patent Application
A patent helps you to safeguard your inventions from immoral people, who can derive benefit from your efforts. However, for protecting your invention, you are needed to register it with the patent authorities in your country.
Applying for a patent can be quite a difficult task. Mentioned below are a few points to assist you in raising the chances of approval of your patent application.
To start with, your patent must satisfy the NUN rule of novelty, utility and non-obviousness. This in turn means that your inventions must be innovative and be able to capture the attention of interested parties and have some commercial value, so that it is not rejected by the authority for being worthless. Your invention must be patentable in the sense that it must not be a minor variant of a current commercial product or have only a trivial, short term market worth. Further, it should not be simple for other members of that specific commercial community to reproduce it in an openly evident way.
You are also required to provide all important details of your invention at the time of filing the application. In some cases, you might also be needed to incorporate designs of your invention in addition to the comprehensive description. This is essential because unless you have communicated the finer details of your development, the authorities will not be able to evaluate it exhaustively and compare it against current products and other pending applications. A failure in doing this can even result in a rejection of your invention even before a thorough assessment has been started.
The process of getting a patent is mostly lengthy and complex on account of the detailed evaluation that it involves. Hence, it is advised to hire a lawyer, who has been engaged in intellectual property cases with a specialization in patents and has a good grip on the subject matter. This would not only conserve time and effort, but also lower the chances of your patent application being disapproved.
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Up Your Business Value By Leveraging On IP
If you look at the books of large companies these days you will discover that their intellectual property (IP) adds a enormous amount to the balance sheet. In fact most companies fixed assets are infinitesimal in comparison to the brand and IP value. This tells us something very interesting – yes – how much more would your company be worth if you invested more in intellectual property identification and registration?
When a business strategically identifies, maintains and secures its IP rights then this can plainly have a major impact on the business in terms of its overall operation, including its ability to attract investors, enter into particular business partnership, and in the end increase its value when it comes to sale or company merger.
Large companies who have mega-brands like McDonalds and Pepsi are often quoted when it comes to their brand value as out-valuing their fixed assets hundreds of times, yet it is easy to forget how these companies also became so huge.
We live in an information world now. Information businesses like Google can be valued at a few billion dollars a few years after creation only because information is now so valuable. Information is a tradable asset only when it is protected by intellectual property laws and other laws. Every business, big or small should take intellectual property seriously. It is one of the best investments literally you can make with a company if the intellectual property value is capitalized within the business and added to the balance sheet.
It is highly recommended for companies of all sizes to be aware of intellectual property issues and create particular schemes that will proactively ensure that their IP will at all times be properly legally protected.
Here are a few areas to help you start focusing on by first identifying the areas that you are creating intellectual property in:
1. Trademarks – these protect parts of your overall brand such as mottoes, pictures, names.
2. Copyrights – these cover the trade protection of expressive items such as documents, books, images, video recordings, audio recordings etc.
3. Trade secrets – these protect proprietary information, internal know-how, systems and operations that are deemed to give you a business competitive edge
4. Patents and industrial designs which protect particular types of ideas and inventions and processes
Considering the above items the first step that you need to do is identifying existing IP within your company. You may be amazed by how much you may have. Once all sources of a company’s IP have been identified, processes should be put in place that enable the company to easily keep track of all existing intellectual property (IP) and all new intellectual property (IP) . Then someone needs to be given the responsibility to manage the intellectual property.
Once the key intellectual property (IP) has been identified then the next step is to look at what should be registered to protect it legally. This is where a great patent lawyer comes in to play. Good IP lawyers don’t come cheap but considering the value that is created then it pays off to invest for all your major intellectual property (IP).
Learn more about Trademark Registration Singapore and discover how does a trademark lawyer and IP protection add value to your business rapidly.