Intellectual Property

Intellectual property (IP) is a legal field that refers to creations of the mind such as musical, literary, and artistic works; inventions; and symbols, names, images, and designs used in commerce, including copyrights, trademarks, patents, and related rights. Under intellectual property law, the holder of one of these abstract properties has certain exclusive rights to the creative work, commercial symbol, or invention by which it is covered.

Intellectual property rights are a bundle of exclusive rights over creations of the mind, both artistic and commercial. The former is covered by copyright laws, which protect creative works, such as books, movies, music, paintings, photographs, and software, and gives the copyright holder exclusive right to control reproduction or adaptation of such works for a certain period of time.

The second category is collectively known as "industrial properties", as they are typically created and used for industrial or commercial purposes. A patent may be granted for a new, useful, and non-obvious invention and gives the patent holder a right to prevent others from practicing the invention without a license from the inventor for a certain period of time. A trademark is a distinctive sign which is used to prevent confusion among products in the marketplace.

An industrial design right protects the form of appearance, style or design of an industrial object from infringement. A trade secret is an item of non-public information concerning the commercial practices or proprietary knowledge of a business. Public disclosure of trade secrets may sometimes be illegal.

The term intellectual property denotes the specific legal rights described above, and not the intellectual work itself.

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[trademark]

The value of intellectual property is very apparent when looks at the plethora of court cases in which a company has brought litigation to protect against trademark infringement. Recently Apple faced a trademark lawsuit from a Chinese company for the "SNOW LEOPARD" name and mark. This is on the heels of a $60 million settlement by Apple with another firm over the "IPAD" name. Amazon Books had also fought it out with Apple over the "APPS STORE" mark.

It is very important for small businesses to protect their intellectual property by filing with the United States Trademark Office to acquire trademark protection in advance Small businesses oftentimes do not protect their intellectual property and this is a critical mistake. Filing a trademark at the United States Patent and Trademark Office is pretty easy to do and there are lots of good guides that explain how a small business can file for a trademark:

http://www.legaladvice.com/articles/details/Help_Filing_a_Trademark_Application

It is most likely that many small businesses do not file for trademark protection because they are so busy building up their business that they do not recognize the importance and value of protecting their company brand or product brand by filing for trademark protection at the U.S.P.T.O.