Table of Contents:

Types of Intellectual Property: Copyright Trademarks & Service Marks  Patent Patent Search Global Patent Offices online: Trade Secrets Intellectual Property - why is it important? How Patents help society: Protecting IP Industry Specific: Links from KookyPlan

 

 

 

 

Types of Intellectual Property:

 

 

 

Copyright

 

Copyright n. - Right to govern the use of the work and obtain the economic benefits

 

• One can copyright computer code, images, books, works of art, or any original works of authorship. One copyrights the tangible expression of the work, not the idea. The act of creation gives copyright.

 

• One can receive additional rights if file Copyrights can be registered with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. One does receive additional rights if files.

 

• Copyrights last seven five years after death for an individual and ninety five years for a corporation.

 

 

 

 

Trademarks & Service Marks 

 

Trademarks are for goods. Service marks are for services.

 

• One can trademark slogans (i.e. Where do you want to go today?), letters (i.e. HP), symbols (i.e. logos), sounds (Apple and Macintosh start up sound.

 

• One can register trademark by state or with federal government. To obtain protection throughout U.S. one should register with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

 

• USPTO bases decision to grant trademark based on distinctiveness, industry

 

• One can use PTO site, do a NAMEPROTECT, or Thompson and Thomson to do a search to see if a trademark or similar mark is currently being used

 

• In U.S., first use in commerce matters in U.S. First to register in Europe.

 

• One cannot file trademarks that are deceptive, symbols of the United States, misappropriates names or likeness of a well-known person.

 

 

 

Patent

 

Patent (n.) – Right to be the only person/entity that does something in a certain way.

 

The idea/invention has to be novel (first time anybody has ever addressed problem in the proposed way. It has to be non-obvious.

 

• Once idea is published one has one year to obtain a patent

• One can patent machines, processes, types of designs, compositions of matter.

• Patent legal cases up until recently were mainly against patents

• Investors generally like to see patents and other competitive advantages

• Possible to file for provisionary patent that lasts for one year

• Can take between 3 weeks and 3 months usually for patent application to be completed by attorney. Time is reduced if drawings are done, prototype exists, flowcharts exist, or there are copious notes and logs.

• To obtain patent one must disclose idea

• Receive right to be only one to use idea for 17 years in return for telling the world about it

 

Obtaining a Patent: Costs between $5,000 and $10,000 with a lawyer. It can take a while to be approved. It can take 18 to 24 months.

 

Links from KookyPlan:

• Biological patent 
• Business method patent  
• Patent application 
• Patent prosecution  
• Patent protecting your idea  
• Provisional patent application  
• Software patent  
• patent attorney  
• patent  
• types of patents 

 

 

 

Patent Search

...before you do anything else...spend some time looking on http://www.google.com/patents to see if your idea is already taken. Or, if you prefer, you can also look here: US Patent and Trademark office: http://www.uspto.gov

 

Global Patent Offices online:

 

  USA: http://www.uspto.gov/

 

Albania	http://www.alpto.gov.al/home.asp?l=
Algeria	http://www.inapi.org/accueil/
Andorra	http://www.ompa.ad
Argentina	http://www.inpi.gov.ar
Armenia	http://www.aipa.am/
Australia	http://www.ag.gov.au
	http://www.ipaustralia.gov.au
Austria	http://www.patentamt.at
Azerbaijan	http://www.azpat.org
Barbados	http://www.caipo.gov.bb
Belarus	http://www.belgospatent.org/
Belgium	http://economie.fgov.be/opri-die.htm
Belize	http://www.belipo.bz
Bolivia	http://www.senapi.gov.bo
Bosnia & Herzigovina	http://www.basmp.gov.ba
Brazil	http://www.minc.gov.br
	http://www.abpi.org.br
Bulgaria	http://www.bpo.bg
Canada	http://cipo.gc.ca
	http://opic.gc.ca
Chile	http://www.dpi.cl
China	http://www.info.gov.hk/ipd
	http://www.economia.gov.mo
	http://sbj.saic.gov.cn
	http://www.sipo.gov.cn
Colombia	http://www.derautor.gov.co
Congo	http://www.anpi.cg.wipo.net
Costa Rica	http://www.registronacional.go.cr
Croatia	http://www.dziv.hr
Cuba	http://www.ocpi.cu
Cyprus	http://www.mcit.gov.cy/drcor
Czech Republic	http://www.upv.cz
Denmark	http://www.kum.dk
	http://www.dkpto.org
Dominican Republic	http://www.seic.gov.do/onapi
Egypt	http://www.mfti.gov.eg
Dominican Republic	http://www.egypo.gov.eg
El Salvador	http://www.cnr.gob.sv
Estonia	http://www.epa.ee
Finland	http://www.minedu.fi
	http://www.prh.fi
France	http://www.inpi.fr
Georgia	http://www.global-erty.net/saqpatenti
	http://www.sakpatenti.org.ge
Germany	http://www.dpma.de
	http://www.bmj.bund.de
Greece	http://www.obi.gr
Guatemala	http://www.rpi.gob.gt
Honduras	http://www.geocities.com/pihonduras
Hungary	http://www.hpo.hu
Iceland	http://www.ministryofeducation.is
	http://www.patent.is
India	http://www.patentoffice.nic.in
Indonesia	http://www.dgip.go.id
Ireland	http://www.entemp.ie
	http://www.patentsoffice.ie
Israel	http://www.patent.justice.gov.il/MojHeb/RashamHaPtentim
Italy	http://www.uibm.gov.it
Jamaica	http://www.jipo.gov.jm
Japan	http://www.jpo.go.jp
Jordan	http://www.mit.gov.jo
Lao	http://www.stea.la.wipo.net/index.html
Latvia	http://www.lrpv.lv
Lebanon	http://www.economy.gov.lb
Lithuania	http://www.vpb.lt
Luxembourg	http://www.etat.lu/EC
Malaysia	http://www.mipc.gov.my
Malta	http://www.foi.org.mt
Macedonia	http://www.ippo.gov.mk
Mexico	http://www.impi.gob.mx
Monaco	http://www.european-patent-office.org/patlib/country/monaco
Mongolia	http://www.ipom.mn
Morocco	http://www.ompic.org.ma
Mozambique	http://www.ipi.gov.mz
Nepal	http://www.nepalcopyright.gov.np,
	http://www.ip.np.wipo.net
Netherlands	http://www.octrooicentrum.nl
New Zealand	http://www.med.govt.nz
	http://www.iponz.govt.nz
Nicaragua	http://www.rpi.gob.ni
Niger	http://www.bnda.ne.wipo.net
Norway	http://www.regjeringen.no/nb/dep/kd.html?id=586
	http://www.patentstyret.no/
Pakistan	http://www.ipo.gov.pk/
Peru	http://www.indecopi.gob.pe/
Phillippines	http://ipophil.gov.ph
Poland	http://www.uprp.pl
Portugal	http://www.inpi.pt
Republic of Korea	http://www.kipo.go.kr/eng/
Serbia	http://www.yupat.sv.gov.yu/
Singapore	http://www.ipos.gov.sg/
Slovakia	http://www.upv.sk
Slovenia	http://www.uil-sipo.si/
South Africa	http://www.cipro.gov.za
Spain	http://www.mcu.es/Propiedad_Intelectual/indice.htm
	http://www.oepm.es/
Sweden	http://www.regeringen.se/
	http://www.prv.se/
Switzerland	http://www.ige.ch/
Syrian Arabic Republic	http://www.dcipsy.com/
Tanzania	http://www.cosota-tz.org
Thailand	http://www.ipthailand.org/
Trinidad & Tobago	http://www.ipo.gov.tt
Turkey	http://www.inorpi.ind.tn/
	http://www.turkpatent.gov.tr/portal/default.jsp
Ukraine	http://www.uacrr.kiev.ua
	http://www.sdip.gov.ua/eng
United Kingdom	http://www.ipo.gov.uk
U.S.A.	http://www.loc.gov/copyright
	http://www.uspto.gov
Uruguay	http://dnpi.gub.uy
Uzbekistan	http://www.patent.uz
Yemen	http://www.yipo.gov.ye

 

 

 

Trade Secrets

 

• Can be better than patent because trade secrets will never expire

• Classis example is Coca Cola formula

• There must be high security level for trade secrets

• Companies must force employees to sign agreements, information is provided on need-to-know basis

• Make revealing a trade secret grounds for immediate termination

• One should inform their employees of their duty to protect the secret

• Secrecy has to start at beginning or courts are merciless

• Make sure all contractors have signed confidentiality contract

• Once trade secret is out it is no longer a trade secret

 

 

 

 

Intellectual Property - why is it important?

 

Globally, the losses are approximately $650 billion annually due to IP infringement. 

 

This hurts:

 

1. Innovation

 

 strong IP rights protections are essential to the process of innovation.  This is because many innovations take years of research and billions of dollars to produce the first unit...but then the production and replication cost is near to nothing.  So, without the protection of patents and other trademarks, there is little incentive for someone to spend all that time and money (if they fear that someone else can just copy them at the end).  Think about Microsoft...it might cost a billion dollars to make Windows Vista, but then its next to no cost to make one extra (illegal or not) copy.  Without intellectual property protection, the company would have no financial way to recapture all of the initial investment, let alone make a profit.

 

 

2. Economic Development

 

Protecting intellectual property doesn’t just bring benefits to innovators.  It’s part of any effective strategy for developing countries to attract foreign direct investment and technology transfer.  A strong intellectual property regime reassures potential investors that their capital and their technologies will not fall prey to piracy and counterfeiting.

 

Consider the broad social benefits that defending intellectual property can bring to a small country, such as Singapore, with few natural resources but the ingenuity of its population.  Singapore has experienced tremendous growth that is directly linked to its strong protections for intellectual property, which is considered to be among the best in Asia.  Though Singapore is a tiny country compared to India, it has managed to attract four times as much direct investment from around the globe — about $200 billion — much of it in high-wage sectors that are reliant on intellectual property.

 

Contrast this with Brazil, which in 2007 lost the opportunity to become the home of a huge new facility for Novartis.  Switzerland-based Novartis identified the absence of strong IP protections in Brazil as one of the chief reasons it chose to invest in Singapore.

 

Around the globe, the innovative industries are at the core of our economic progress — creating high-paying jobs, enhancing our competitiveness. In the United States, economists trace 30-40 percent of all gains in productivity and growth over the course of the 20th century to economic innovation in its various forms.    Today, approximately two-thirds of the value of America’s large businesses can be traced to the intangible assets that we call intellectual property.  These are among the findings of a recent study entitled “Economic Effects of Intellectual Property-Intensive Manufacturing in the United States,” by Robert Shapiro and Nam Pham.

 

According to this study, manufacturing sectors that depend on intellectual property — such as communications equipment, pharmaceuticals, and semiconductors — generated almost twice as much value-added per employee as other manufacturing sectors in recent years.  Wages in these sectors are also much higher than the national average.  In U.S. manufacturing, the number of science and engineering jobs has grown in the first years of this decade much faster in the innovative industries — up nearly 86 percent in pharmaceuticals and 88 percent in computer manufacturing.  As Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates testified before the U.S. Congress in March, “Innovation is the engine of job growth; if we discourage innovation here at home, economic growth will decline, resulting in fewer jobs for American workers.” 

 

Some activists claim that counterfeits are good for the poor because they offer access to goods at a lower price.  However, these findings demolish the idea that failing to protect intellectual property is somehow pro-development.

 

read more here

 

THE MEXICAN EXAMPLE

 

In the Americas, Mexico offers an excellent example of how a country can obtain significant benefits by protecting intellectual property.  Mexico approved new intellectual property protections in 1991 as part of a series of reforms that led to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).  Within five years, R&D investment in Mexico by the research-based pharmaceutical industry tripled. A World Bank study found a significant shift in the views of U.S. firms, which in 1991 had been unwilling to transfer their newest technologies — even to wholly owned subsidiaries in Mexico.  Within a few years, all of this had changed. The country has attracted hundreds of millions of dollars in investment; and these investments created thousands of jobs.  Today, Mexico has become one of just a few countries in the world where pharmaceutical firms first roll out their new life-saving medicines. 

 

And contrary to the charges of some activists, Mexico has not seen prices rise for pharmaceutical products.  In fact, these prices have fallen.  At the same time, generics have become more widely available.

 

 

read more here

 

 

How Patents help society:

 

by making new discoveries public.  If you have strong patent protection, it encourages companies to make their discoveries public (as they are required to do when filing a patent). Then, when the patent expires, all of that knowledge becomes public, and the other companies in the field can build on that knowledge.  Without this transfer of knowledge, the society as a whole would be worse off.   Without patent protection, innovators would hoard information.

 

 

 

 

Protecting IP

 

Do on first day with new employees:

 

1. Non-disclosure Agreement

2. Non-compete Agreement

3. Confidentiality Agreement

4. Assignment of Invention

5. Hiring Process

6. Exit Process

 

California does not recognize non-compete agreements.

 

 

 

 

Industry Specific:

 

Intellectual property in specific fields

 

 

 

 

 

 

Links from KookyPlan

• Biological patent 
• Business method patent  
• Patent application 
• Patent prosecution  
• Patent protecting your idea  
• Provisional patent application  
• Software patent  
• patent attorney  
• patent  
• types of patents