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Published:
August 11, 2008

Patents, Copyrights and Trademarks For Dummies

Overview

Useful tips and step-by-step guidance from filing to issue to license

Acquire and protect your share of this major business asset

Want to secure and exploit the intellectual property rights due you or your company? This easy-to-follow guide shows you how — helping you to evaluate your idea's commercial potential, conduct patent and trademark searches, document the invention process, license your IP rights, and comply with international laws. Plus, you get detailed examples of each patent application type!

Discover how to:

  • Avoid application blunders
  • Register trademarks and copyrights
  • Meet patent requirements
  • Navigate complex legal issues
  • Protect your rights abroad
  • The entire body of U.S. patent laws
  • Example office actions and amendments

  • Sample forms

  • Trademark registration certificates

  • Application worksheets

See the CD appendix for details and complete system requirements.

Note: CD-ROM/DVD and other supplementary materials are not included as part of eBook file.

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About The Author

Henri Charmasson is an attorney with a 35-year career in the field of intellectual property law.

John Buchaca is an intellectual property attorney and partner at Charmasson, Buchaca & Leach, LLP.

Sample Chapters

patents, copyrights and trademarks for dummies

CHEAT SHEET

You protect physical property with security systems and watchdogs, you protect your intellectual property with a patent, copyright, or trademark. To use these safeguards, you need to know the steps involved in the patent process, the basics of copyright protection, and how to identify your design, idea, or other creative work legally.

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Articles from
the book

If you’re developing work or product that you want to get a patent on, register as the copyright holder of, or trademark, you need to be able to distinguish the fruit of your labors from the work of other people. The three types of commercial identifiers that distinguish your product, service, or company from others are: Product identifiers, commonly known as brands, or trademarks, which distinguish your product from others.
The world of patents, copyrights, and trademarks includes trade secrets. Trade secrets can take many forms, such as your customer and supplier list, your next marketing campaign, a particular process or formula, or your finances. How can you protect them? By using the tips in the following list: Have all employees, contractors, consultants, advisors, and suppliers sign a confidentiality agreement.
You protect physical property with security systems and watchdogs, you protect your intellectual property with a patent, copyright, or trademark. To use these safeguards, you need to know the steps involved in the patent process, the basics of copyright protection, and how to identify your design, idea, or other creative work legally.

Copyrights, Trademarks, & Patents

A copyright protects an Original Work of Authorship (OWA) — think short story, computer program, or song lyrics, for example — which must have tangible form, be a result of significant mental activity, have no inherent technical function, and be the author’s original creation. Here’s the skinny on copyrights: As soon as you create an OWA, you automatically have a copyright, which prevents others from copying, publishing, or performing your work.

Copyrights, Trademarks, & Patents

A patent is the most expensive and complex type of IP (intellectual property) right. Decide whether you can protect your IP with a copyright, trademark, or service mark, or by keeping it under wraps as a trade secret before you go through the patent process. If you and your IP professional decide that a patent is the way to go, and you have the time and money to see the process through to the conclusion, here’s the patent process in a nutshell: Make sure the invention is really yours and doesn’t belong to your boss, your spouse, or your business partner.
The world of patents, copyrights, and trademarks has its share of acronyms, just like any other field. Although when you see IP, you may think “Internet protocol,” in the intellectual property realm, IP stands for, well, intellectual property. The following table lists some of the more commonly used acronyms
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Frequently Asked Questions

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