Intellectual property law is the specific body of law that protects things which have no bodily form. Basically, intellectual property is any product of the human intellect. The purpose of the law is to give exclusive protection of rights to owners to use or reproduce the intellectual property, and to prevent unauthorized use and piracy of others. In some circumstances, intellectual property law protects secrecy.
The Intellectual Property Clause is the fundamental structure that regulates patents and copyrights. The government agency that administers the issuance and supervision of federally registered patents and trademarks is the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO). Trademarks may also be regulated by state laws, even though patents and trademarks are entirely regulated by federal law. To fully apply, all copyrights must be registered with the US Copyright Office. On the other hand, trade secrets are principally administered at the state level, and are usually contingent on the unfair competition laws.
The international guidelines for intellectual property laws differ, in order to acquire, register or take effect, intellectual property rights must be handled individually in each country. The 1994 World Trade Organization (WTO) Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs) is one of the international treaties and conventions that has built standardization in the regulations and assist several forms of registration in between countries.
Intellectual Property Basic Forms
Copyright Law
A copyright is fundamentally a right for original authorships works. A copyright work entitles the owner exclusive rights which include reproducing, performing in public, and distribution of copies of work in public. The copyright law is regulated to prevent people from using originally authored work. The work must be original and fixed into some tangible medium to receive copyright from the federal law.
Trademark Law
Trademark law safeguards consumers by authorizing manufacturers to prevent the use of their names and or symbols through the application of others which could confuse consumers. Trademarks can be a word, phrase, logo or any symbol, utilized to distinguish a product, a product source, and the producer and or the marketer. Provided the name or image is continuously used in business trademark rights can last for a very long time.
Patent Law
Patent law is the right granted to inventors to protect their exclusive right to manufacture, distribute, and sell their inventions for a limited time period provided that they open their invention to the public. An invention must be novel, unique, and non-obvious to receive patent protection. There are different types of inventions that can be patented such as utility patent, design patent and plant patent.
Trade Secrets
Trade secret law provides protection to any information that is secretly held by commerce, and usually guarded by the owner from public disclosure. There are certain standards to be protected by trade secret law: the information must in fact be secret, and it must have self-sufficient economic value by being a secret.
