Intellectual Property

Kinds of Property

• Movable Property
➢ Car, Pen, Furniture, Dress
• Immovable Property
➢ Land, Building
• Intellectual Property
➢ Literary works, inventions

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Intellectual Property
 An intangible personal property resulting from
mental processes
 Protection of the owners right to protect or profit
from the use of his or her property
Tangible Assets – Identify and Inventory
Intangible Assets – Difficult to Identify
 Definition of Intellectual Property
“Intellectual Property shall include the rights relating to
– literary, artistic and scientific works,
– performances of performing artists,
inventions in all fields of human endeavor:
• scientific discoveries
• Industrial designs
• trademarks, service marks and commercial names and
designations
• protection against unfair competition
and all other rights resulting from intellectual activity in the
industrial, scientific, literary or artistic fields.”
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Intellectual Property laws
 Federal rights
 International protections
 Common law rights
The legal foundation for U.S. intellectual property rights was laid by the
Founders in 1787, in the very first Article of the U.S. Constitution, which
outlined the precepts of our democratic society. In Article 1, Section 8,
Clause 8 of the Constitution, Congress was given the authority to
“promote the progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited
times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective
writings and discoveries”
Intellectual Property Types
 Patent
 Copyright
 Trademarks/service marks
 Trade Names
 Industrial designs
Patent
A patent is the right to exclude others from making, using, selling, or
offering to sell the patented invention during the term of the patent
 A legal Monopoly granted by government.

 Allows the inventor an exclusive right to make, use, and sell

an invention for twenty (20) years.
 Patent applicant must demonstrate to the patent office that
an invention, discovery, or design is non-obvious, novel, and
useful.
Patent
 A patent holder gives notice that an article or design is
patented by placing on it the word ``patent'' or ``pat.,'' plus
the patent number.
 If a firm make, uses or sells another's patented design,
product, or process without the patent owner's permission,
it will be illegal. Example of patent products like inventions as:
 The Lightbulb.
 The Telephone. ...
 The Computer. ...
 Bluetooth. ...
Requirements for a Patent
 To obtain a patent, the new invention must be:
◼ Novel – not known or used in this country and not published
anywhere.
◼ Nonobvious – cannot be an obvious way to do something (new
idea).
◼ Useful – must have some application, even if not commercially
practical.
Copyright
 An intangible right given to the author or originator of
certain literary or artistic productions.
 Works created after January 1, 1978, are automatically given
statutory copyright protection for the life of the author plus
seventy years.
 Copyrights owned by publishing houses expire ninety-five
years after publication or a one hundred-twenty-years from
the date of creation, whichever is first.
 Copyrights examples
 Works of authorship include:
◼ Literary works
◼ Musical
◼ Dramatic
◼ Pictorial, graphic, sculptural
◼ Motion pictures, other audiovisual
◼ Sound recordings
◼ Architectural works
 Copyrights
 Copyright holder owns the EXCLUSIVE right:
◼ to reproduce
◼ to prepare derivative works
◼ to distribute copies
◼ to publicly perform
◼ to publicly display
Copyright
 Exists automatically upon creation of an original
work but
 Placement of copyright symbol © gives notice and
to
 judicially enforce copyright requires Registration
with the US Copyright Office
 Copyright Fair Use Doctrine

 Reproductions of copyrighted works for, "criticism,

comment, news reporting, teaching (including
multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or
research."
Computers
 Software – copyrightable aspects:
◼ Codes – both source and object codes
◼ Structure – how a program accomplishes a task
◼ Look and Feel – the way a program looks and uses symbols

 Digital Millennium Copyright Act

◼ Makes it illegal to delete copyright information, such as the author’s
name, and then distribute the work via the internet.
◼ It is also illegal to circumvent encryption or scrambling devices.
 TRADE MARK
 A name of an enterprise or a Mark capable of being represented
graphically, distinguishing the goods or services of one person
from those of others e. g., LUX, coca cola, APPLE
 Trade Mark can be -
o sign , words, letters, numbers,
o drawings, pictures, logo,
o colors or combination of colors,
o shape of goods,
o graphic representation or packaging or
o any combination of the above as applied to an article or a product.
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Trademark

 Assists customer in identifying a product without

confusion.
 If a business uses the trademark of another,
consumers are misled as to who made the goods.
Registration of Trade Mark
 Trade Marks are registered by national trade mark registries
and are valid in that country
 Registration is made after examination and publication
 Period of registration is for 10 years but can be renewed
indefinitely

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Kinds of Trademarks
 Marks on goods
 Service Marks
 Certification trademark
 Collective Marks
 Well known marks
 Trade Names

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TRADE MARK

 Service Marks include banking, education, finance, insurance,

real estate, entertainment, repairs, transport, conveying news and
information, advertising etc
 Certification Trade marks: Certified by the Proprietor as having
characteristics like geographical origin, ingredients, quality e.g.
AGMARK, WOOLMARK Certification mark cannot be used as a
trade mark.
 Certifies that the goods on which it is applied are made
of 100% wool. It is registered in 140 countries and
licensed to the companies which assure that they will
comply with the strict standards set out by the Wool
mark company , the owner of the mark.
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Trade Names
 Identifies a company, partnerships or business.
 Cannot be registered under federal law unless they are also
used as trademarks or service marks (used to identify services).
 Common law protection.
Ownership and Registration
 First person to use a mark in trade owns it.
 Registration is not necessary, but does have some advantages.
◼ Protection becomes nationwide
◼ Gives public notification of trademark protection
◼ Holders of registered marks have first priority to use the
mark as an Internet domain name
 Service Mark
 Any word, name, symbol,
device, or any combination,
used, or intended to be
used, in commerce, to
identify and distinguish the
services of one provider
from services provided by
others, and to indicate the
source of the services.
Trade Secrets
 A trade secret is a formula, device, process, method, or
compilation of information that, when used in business,
gives the owner an advantage over competitors who do
not know it (business plans, budgets).
 The Economic Espionage Act of 1996.
◼ This statute prohibits any attempt to steal trade
secrets for the benefit of someone other than the
owner, including for the benefit of any foreign
government.
What is an Industrial Design?
 ‘Design’ means only the features of shape, configuration,
pattern, ornament or composition of lines or colors applied to
any article whether in two dimensional or three dimensional or
in both forms, by any industrial process or means, whether
manual, mechanical or chemical, separate or combined, which
in the finished article appeal to and are judged solely by the
eye.

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Consumer Products

CUTS Training Programme 14 Jul 11 28

Pharmaceutical Product

CUTS Training Programme 14 Jul 11 29

Textile & Jewellery

CUTS Training Programme 14 Jul 11 30

 Rights of the Registered Proprietor

 The proprietor of the registered design has the

exclusive right to apply the design to any
article in the class in which the design is
registered
 Period of protection is ten years extendable by
5 years.

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Intellectual Property Sources
 Intellectual Property made simple by Nolo Press
 Patent, Copyright & Trademark
by Attorney Stephen Elias
http://www.nolo.com/product/pct_sub62.html
 Outstanding website on copyright law
 http://www.benedict.com/
 U.S. Patent and Trademark Office
 http://www.uspto.gov/
 U.S. Copyright Office
http://www.loc.gov/copyright/