Brief overview of the different types of intellectual property.
These days, who has time to tell their copyrights from their trademarks and their trade secrets? Can you tell them apart? What the heck is a service mark anyway? Patents? Uh, I don't think so. I wouldn't want you to get caught with your trade dressing in a stitch, so I will occasionally provide a brief overview of the most common kinds of intellectual property. We kick it off with an oldie, but a goodie.
Copyrights. This is the legal protection that applies to original works of authorship, including written work (books, essays, your web page, etc.), songs and even things like software (source code for your new advergame) and certain works of visual art. You don't need to register your work for copyright protection to apply; it's automatic and applies the moment the work is created in fixed form. Even for something like this. However, there are some benefits to registering your work with the US Copyright Office , for example, the right to sue for attorney's fees in the event someone violates your copyright.
In their zeal to sound like a law geek, like me, people sometimes say things like, "Hey, that's a great brand name. Let's copyright it!" Easy, trigger! A brand name for a product or service are covered by trademarks and service marks. And we'll get to that in another post.