Business and product names, logos; unique product designs, shapes, utilities, functions; and other proprietary manufacturing methods can comprise a significant portion of a company’s potential revenue and intellectual property (IP).
Protecting IP is a critical component of a sustainable business strategy. However, many companies don’t take the steps necessary to fully guard the ownership of these properties, leaving them vulnerable to encroaching competitors and/or missing out on sources of revenue generation.
Smart Business spoke with Karl W. Hauber, an attorney at Fay Sharpe LLP, about identifying and protecting IP to avoid costly legal lapses.
What do trademarks cover?
Trademarks are used to protect business and product names (i.e. words and phrases), logos, and in some cases shapes and colors that are used to identify a company and its named products or services.
There are common-law protections for using a name or symbol, but a mark not registered with the U.S. Trademark Office can cause issues. For example, a second entity can register the same name or mark. The non-registering first entity may be restricted with respect to future use and prevented from further expansion.
By registering, an entity can become the exclusive user of a trademark in association with particular goods or services, so as to develop source association in that mark. The customer goodwill and market association can become valuable IP, the rights of which may be licensed or sold outright.
How does a copyright work?
Copyrights cover software, website content, schematics, music, photos, literary and artistic works, among other things. Once ‘original works of ownership’ are secured in a fixed medium or recorded in some way, there’s an inherent copyright associated with that material and the manner in which it is expressed. Copyright ownership provides the rights to reproduce the work and to prepare derivative works based upon it.
Copyright registration with the U.S. Copyright Office provides additional benefits. Mainly it’s a public record of the copyright claim, enabling the applicant to seek legal remedies and initiate a lawsuit against someone who has copied material or is using it without authorization.
What can be patented?
The most common patent type is a utility patent, which protects unique devices and apparatuses, methods of manufacture, chemical compounds, formulas and drugs — collectively referred to as inventions. Generally, an invention is a solution to a technological problem and may be an apparatus or a method. Having patent protection provides the owner the right to exclude others from using, making, selling or importing devices protected by the patent for 20 years from the application filing date. Patent rights can be licensed, assigned and sold, which may provide monetary gains and revenue for the patent owner.
A company can be barred from patenting an invention. If the invention is on the market, or publicly known, for more than one year it’s barred from patent protection and deemed a contribution to the public.
In addition, design patents cover the shape of or pattern applied to a product — how it looks through ornamental design only. Design patents have a 14-year lifespan and different protection. The bulk of the design patent application is drawings and figures that accurately depict a product. Enforcing a design patent involves infringers trying to market a substantially similar design.
What are the pros and cons of trade secrets?
Sometimes companies have a unique manufacturing method, for example, so they protect it by keeping it secret. In contrast to patents, where a detailed description submitted to the patent office eventually becomes known to all, trade secrets must be shielded from the public. The lifespan of a trade secret is based on its secrecy and will last as long as it remains unknown to others.
Once a company has something it believes is secret, it must take active, detailed internal steps to maintain the secrecy. But if someone can reverse engineer a product, there’s nothing to stop him or her from doing so. Manufacturing methods, for example, sometimes can’t easily be reverse engineered, so are better candidates for trade secrets.
Who can help companies protect their IP?
Working with counsel knowledgeable in this area of the law can help parties get through matters concerning the best way to protect IP. It is beneficial for interested parties to be proactive with their IP counsel and openly discuss plans and future initiatives so one can avoid costly disputes with others’ intellectual property rights.
Karl W. Hauber is an attorney at Fay Sharpe LLP. Reach him at (216) 363-9212 or [email protected].
Insights Legal Affairs is brought to you by Fay Sharpe, LLP
