Intellectual Property

Intellectual Property (IP) is an umbrella term for trademarks, copyrights, and patents. Sometimes the protections offered by this trinity can overlap, but their differences are mostly clear:

Trademark law protects brand names, slogans, and logos.  Walmart and McDonald’s are not just the bastions of American hegemony–they are, in name and style, the “intellectual properties” of corporate America.  If you too boldly dream of one day owning your very own business that you have driven to success on the backs of minimum wage workers whose living incomes are subsidized by the Federal Government, it is crucial that you do not follow in the infringing footsteps of Mr. McDowell.  Robert has experience conducting trademark searches and registrations.

Copyright protects literature and audio/visuals, including your favorite films, photos, songs, and musical works.  This area of the law may come into play when people illegally download pornography.  There are criminal laws in place that make it illegal for children under 18 to be exposed to pornography, but there are also copyright laws in place that prohibit the viewing of pornography if it is obtained by illegal means irrespective of age, i.e. pirated rather than paid for.  It is of course more common to hear about porn lawsuits involving copyright infringement than ones involving illegal distribution of pornography to minors.  From a financial standpoint, it is easy to understand these unbalanced priorities.  Robert can help you register your copyright by filing a simple form and depositing one or two samples of the work (depending on what it is) with the U.S. Copyright Office.

Finally, patent law protects inventions like Viagra and designs like the Thong Diaper. (Oh, and let’s not forget about this gem that delivers babies through centrifugal force by spinning the mother in a circle.) However, if you are like Colonel Sanders or Robert Woodruff, you may wish to withhold your “herbs and spices” recipe as a trade secret by guarding it in a vault.  As long as your trade secret is not revealed to the general public, and as long as it isn’t subject to inevitable, independent discovery by equally-creative competition, you can forego revealing it publicly in an application for the limited 20-year duration of patent protection.  Thus, with patent law, one must consider the trade-off between maintaining a trade secret versus coming out of the closet with a patent application.

Contrary to the implications of the phrase, one need not exercise much intellect to get the protections of “intellectual” property law.  Indeed, the Supreme Court once said originality in the copyright context requires merely a “modicum of creativity.”  Now get out there and make your Uncle Sam proud!