Why Are Patent Laws Important?
A patent grants an inventor exclusive legal rights on his creation and also for the process of production that his invention would require. It plays a very important part in the commercial world by promoting new ideas and inventions.
When an inventor invents an innovative and exclusive product that can be sold for a profit, he would not want others to take benefit of his creation, and the time and energy invested in it. However, it is often difficult to protect your invention from all the unscrupulous people, as you might have to trust and disclose it to others for testing its viability and marketing prospects. It is in such instances that patent laws come into the picture.
Patent laws grant the inventor legal ownership over his invention and processes involved along with the right of exclusive usage for a certain period, after which any other person can use that invention for his or her own benefit. This gives legal protection to the inventor, who can then make the maximum commercial gain out of his time and efforts invested into the product before another person can take benefit of it.
Patents are also critical in cases where the inventor wants to license the product, as the licensee may not want to invest in a product that is not protected from copying. However, the complex procedures and large costs involved in patenting make it unnecessary for products with low commercial demand as well as for those which are to be sold for a very limited time span.
Patents are most important in a situation where the product, which has been created through hard work and skills of an individual or a group, has fair prospects in the market due to some exclusive advantage that it provides. If such efforts were not protected through a legal framework, there would be no way to reward people who can use their creativity and come up with groundbreaking ideas.
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Basis Of Legal Action For Trademark Infringement
Trademarks offer legal safety for certain words, logos, graphics and other symbols used by firms for carrying out their business. They not only make sure that the customers are not puzzled by fake products but also allow the trademark owner to take action against unscrupulous persons or companies, who try to counterfeit the mark to make a profit out of it.
Laws of trademark provide for action in case of dilution of trademark of an established firm and when there is a significant possibility of creating a misunderstanding in the minds of the customers.
The infringement leading to dilution of the trademark involves actions on part of other firms or persons that will lead to affecting the uniqueness of the trademark of a well known company, which in turn would reduce the reputation of its goods in the market. For instance, if a company producing food products has a specific trademark, which is then copied by another firm that manufactures pesticides, there is a likelihood of customers thinking that the former is endangering its product quality.
The likelihood of misunderstanding arises in instances of use of trademarks that are exactly alike or so remarkably similar that the customers will be unable to differentiate the two. The confusion could be related to anything ranging from the features of the product to its exact source. The basic reason for such a violation is that an ordinary customer cannot be expected to remember the exact details of all the products in the marketplace. In situations like these, any infringement of the mark can cause substantial financial and image loss for the company that has the rights of ownership of that trademark.
However, this is not a comprehensive list of the types of trademark infringements that can take place. The trademark owner can take legal action against a company that attempts to sell off its items as ones coming from the company that owns the trademark. Similarly, action can also be taken for unfair competition and other such claims.
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Industrial Design And Its Worth In The Business World
In this age of severe competition in the international markets, the significance of industrial design is felt more strongly than ever before. With an increasing number of companies trying to attract customers’ attention, it becomes very crucial to concentrate on improvements in the product to be able to succeed in the market.
Firms now try out every possible strategy to make their brands attractive to the customers, which provides buyers a lot of options and it has become harder to please them. Hence, a manufacturer will be left behind the competition if he does not offer buyers the latest and the best in terms of product quality. This has come to mean that industrial design is now an essential aspect for any firm that wants to do well in the industry.
Industrial design allows a firm to gain a competitive benefit over rival firms by helping it develop novel products and attractive designs that satisfy both utilitarian and aesthetic needs of the customers. It is also important since any remarkable innovation can give the company fame that lasts for a long time. Many firms have been able to come up with products that have ended up being identified by a whole generation and have had a significant cultural effect on them.
Moreover, a company that prioritizes industrial design always provides a superior quality of products to the customers. Such goods are the outcome of comprehensive research and are known by their durability, utility and beauty, which result in greater customer satisfaction. Industrial design can also lower the cost of production of a firm notably, as designers can suggest radical changes in the product that use more resource friendly manufacturing techniques.
A company that has been recognized for coming up with novel products also has a greater chance of entering into contracts with influential partners who seek reputed and proven firms. Moreover, it can use its reputation to seek the best people from the job market as everyone wants to work for a company that signifies change and innovation.
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Kinds Of Intellectual Property
The number of certain types of legal monopolies over creations of mind, both artistic and commercial, and the related fields of law is called Intellectual property (IP). Under intellectual property law, proprietors have sole rights to some intangible assets like musical, literary, and artistic works; ideas, discoveries, and inventions; and words. phrases, symbols, and designs. Intellectual property has been divided into four main categories namely patents, copyrights, trademarks, and trade secrets.
Copyrights give lawful rights to both unpublished and published original works. They protect the ownership of pieces like musical scores, poetry, films, novels etc. It gives legal rights to the owner to make use of the expression of his or her idea in addition to reproducing, giving away, exhibiting or even selling it with complete freedom within the time decided by law. The owner has an authority over his work for more than 50 years, which is valid even after his demise and any unlawful use of the creation within this time is actionable.
Patents on the other hand are lawful and official rights that allow an inventor to prevent others from manufacturing or selling his or her invention. They offer safety not just for technological breakthroughs and scientific theories but also for new discoveries in the field of biology. In most countries, patent cover is available for a limited period of 20 years and the inventor loses his sole ownership over the invention after the expiry of this time span.
Trade secrets are proprietary information that can be used by the firm to defeat its competitors. A trade secret could be anything ranging from a client database with the contact information of most valuable customers to a unique recipe or even some secret research. Generally, trade secrets are not governed by the state machinery but by strict internal standards and policies of the particular firm. The usual way of securing trade secrets is by allowing access to only a few key executives and not everyone, or by depositing it safely in a bank together with other valuable items and documents.
Trademarks include words, symbols or designs that are used in the context of a particular brand or product in order to distinguish it from products of competitors. Trademarks create an exclusive brand identity for a firm and generate quick recall in the minds of customers. Generally, a trademark registration remains valid for a decade after which it has to be renewed.
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Suggestions On Choosing A Patent Lawyer
While in a lot of other areas legal intervention is needed only after disputes crop up, a patent lawyer is useful from the time you start thinking about applying for a patent. The primary duties of a patent lawyer are to assist clients obtain patents, recommend measures to secure the patents and if required, defend the right of the patentee in case of an infringement.
The patent application and registration process is generally a very time consuming and tedious one. Hence, the necessity for an expert and knowledgeable lawyer is felt keenly. However, before you actually select and engage a lawyer, you should assess his experience in dealing with patents, and if he’ll be able to understand the creative work that you are patenting. For instance, a lawyer who hails from a field like software, may not be very knowledgeable about the patenting needs for medical products.
A second point that you must think about is the success rate of the lawyer you wish to employ for patent application submission and related processing. If you can review information about how many patents that have been given to clients of the lawyer then you will have a sufficient idea of his capabilities. By doing this, you can determine how effective the lawyer is and if you have a high likelihood of success in your patent application because only a competent patent lawyer can make sure that your application does not have any errors.
Of the number of upcoming lawyers in the industry who deal with patents, it should be an easy task to identify one who is competent enough to deal with your needs and whose charges are not too expensive.
Moreover, you should also try to stick with the same lawyer right from the filing stage to licensing and promotion of your product or idea, as this lawyer would be aware of the intricacies of your patent, and he or she will be much more successful in handling any legal problems that might arise at a future date.
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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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Safeguarding Your Intellectual Property
Even intangible property like ideas possessing commercial worth require protection from persons who might want to misuse them for their benefit without the permission of the creator or owner. Intellectual property or IP rights allow you to safeguard your idea legally as well as to take action against violators. Some of the alternatives for safeguarding your interest in your intellectual property are mentioned below.
The first thing that you should do is to withhold critical information with respect to the idea that is in your thought or in a tangible medium. You must be very careful while sharing your idea with people, especially in public or on internet. If you want to share your idea with your colleagues by means of email, you must make sure that your account is protected by a strong password.
It is also advisable to have the fundamental understanding of laws dealing with intellectual property. This knowledge will aid you in shaping your company’s policies to protect your intellectual property and take actions against those who try to take undue advantage of it. One such instance is when you engage a third party to develop your idea. You must legally bind them to not disclose or use the provided information for any other purpose. The proper way of doing this is to make them sign non-disclosure agreements, which will help you take legal measures if required.
However, it is also crucial to engage a legal expert to find out the detailed provisions available to you to safeguard your idea. The related laws can often be quite complex and it is advisable to depend on an intellectual property lawyer for dealing with such issues. The lawyer will then let you know the ways of patenting or copyrighting your work, so that no one can infringe it.
You should also remember that the best time to engage an IP lawyer and apply for IP protection is when your idea is in the initial stages. The sooner an application for your patent or copyright is filed, the lesser will be the hassle at a later time.
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Types Of Trademarks
Trademark safety is granted for terms, logos and graphics that identify products of one firm as distinct from others. The main purpose of trademarks is to ensure that the consumers are not subjected to any confusion with respect to the origin of the product.
One of the key needs for a trademark is that it should be different, which means it should be unique and recognizable. The distinctiveness of a trademark can be assessed by placing it in one of the trademark groups – suggestive, descriptive, generic and arbitrary.
A descriptive mark is one that provides description of a product in terms of its quality or features like odour, functionality, dimensions etc. Although some descriptive marks that have taken a secondary meaning in the marketplace, which the consumers can recognize as originating from a specific manufacturer, can be trademarked, this is not the general case as descriptive marks are rarely exclusive.
Suggestive marks are pointers to a particular product aspect or quality. However, it is usually the case that the mark and the product do not show any obvious relation and the customers might need to guess the link between the two. For example, ‘Hush Puppies’ is a popular brand name that markets shoes that guarantee comfort and protect your feet from becoming sore. It is interesting to note that ‘barking dogs’ is a slang for sore feet in some regions, especially in the US.
Fanciful marks on the contrary have no relationship whatsoever with the any quality or feature of the item. For example, the use of trademark ‘Apple’ with a symbol of a half eaten apple is not at all linked to the computers marketed under the mark. Fanciful marks are those that are not used in existing languages and have come from the imagination of the manufacturer, such as ‘Exxon’.
Lastly, generic marks are ones which represent a general category of items like ‘olive oil’ and are granted no safety under the existing trademark laws.
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