Trademarks, Copyrights, or Patents?
How should you protect your IP? (Trademarks, Copyrights, or Patents?)
You have an idea, a product, a machine, a song, a sound, a logo that you want to protect. So, how exactly do you do that and which protection method should you use to protect your Intellectual Property? We see a lot of questions like this and we will be filling you in (over the next few posts) on what each means and how to use them.
First, you need to know which protections mean what.
According to the USPTO (uspto.gov), a Trademark is defined as:
A word, phrase, symbol or design that distinguishes the source of goods/services from others. A logo, brand name, color, phrase or slogan can be trademarked.
What makes Trademarks different?
They don’t expire! Patents and Copyrights live for a certain number of years, and you have to renew them. They can actually be in effect for the life of the product/service/company. Your registration does require filing and fees paid at regular intervals to ensure it stays in effect forever.
Also, did you know that if you’re registered you can use the ®️ but if you’re just keeping it as a “common law” trademark you can use ™️ indefinitely?
Ok, so what’s a Patent?
Patents are related to Inventions. So, if you have a machine, manufactured article, process, or chemical composition they are all what’s called “patentable”.
What makes Patents different?
Patents are specifically for inventions like clothing patterns, the blueprints for machinery your company designed, or the exact chemical makeup of the lip gloss your company produces.
How long do they last?
Design patents are yours for fifteen years from the time of issuance. For utility patents and plants, the patent stands from 20 years from the date of filing.
Alright, so what’s a Copyright?
Copyrights are probably the most popular and well-known form of Intellectual Property Protection.
The USPTO defines a copyright as a form of intellectual Property protection for written works - or works of authorship such as dramatic, musical, literary, and artistic works like poetry, movies, songs, software, novels, and architecture.
How long do they last?
That depends. If you, an individual, copyright your work, it lasts for the life of the author, and an additional 70 years past. If a copyright is filed anonymously, they last from 95 to 120 years from the date of creation or whichever is shorter.