If you own a business then intellectual property rights are something that you should most certainly know about. The law in relation to these rights can actually be very complex indeed and you are never going to need to learn about every aspect of them. With this being said it will be very important that you have a basic understanding of what these rights are, and how you can avoid infringing them. To give us a brief overview of the four main cornerstones of intellectual property rights, we caught up with industry professionals MEM Concessions LLC.
Patent
A patent can be applied for by anyone who has invented something and once it is granted nobody else will be able to copy, recreate or use the invention unless the patent owner gives their permission first. A patent protects inventions, ideas and processes and when it comes to inventions the patent can be given for an entire product or perhaps solely for a mechanism within the product.
Trademark
Trademarks refer to logos, symbols or signs that a business uses in order to identify themselves. A perfect example of this would be the roaring lion at the beginning of any movie made by MGM, this is something that they have created and it cannot be used by another business. Trademarks can cover words, smells, sounds, phrases and even color schemes.
Copyright
Copyright is the phrasing that is used when we describe the way in which an idea is expressed, rather than the idea itself. Within this it includes any work such as music, architectural drawings, scripts, poetry or even written code for software. The copyright will ensure that the creator of the work has absolute control over the rights of it, and how it is then distributed, used or reproduced.
Trade Secrets
Businesses are protected when it comes to any strategies, formulas, processes, procedures or devices from being used by another business if this information is gained illegally. The responsibility will always be on the shoulders of the business to make sure that such information is protected of course but were their ideas to be stolen, they can count on this aspect of intellectual property law to protect them from another business benefiting.
Additional Acts
There are some important aspects beyond these key 4 areas of intellectual property law which you should also be aware of.
Moral Rights – This is used to speak about the rights that the owner of a copyright has over their material.
Unfair Competition – An act that prevents a business gaining an unfair advantage through the use of trade infringement, trade defamation, false advertising or the misappropriation of a name or a likeness.
Publicity Rights – Often called personality rights, this act was put in place to protect people against their image or personality being used for commercial gain.
Remember that if you have any doubts at all, you should speak with a legal professional.
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