Whenever you have brilliant ideas or stunning concepts in mind, which are valuable and unique – it’s best to have intellectual property rights over your work or invention. It’s because if you own the intellectual property of your work, you also have the right to reproduce or manufacture products based on your idea. For example, the Orange County patent law can protect your rights over your brainchild whenever someone tries to copy it.
That’s why most artists, scientists, and entrepreneurs opt to have intellectual property rights over their brainchild. If they don’t have the means to do so, these businesses can also opt to purchase a licensed intellectual property wherein they can use the product after buying the rights from the owner.
Moreover, there are three kinds of intellectual property, which people tend to interchange through time. These include patents, copyrights, and trademarks, which is our main topic in this article. We will also differentiate every intellectual property from one another to see which one you should have if you plan to invent something in the future.
All About Patents
Most inventors or scientists have patents over their research and discoveries. This is because patenting works to promote and give back to these people to produce something unique and valuable for society.
To make it simpler, patents provide full rights to the maker, which means only they can legally reproduce their ideas and concepts. And a patent only lasts for 20 years, which means you will have to renew it after those years to verify your rights over them still.
Types of Patents
In case you don’t know, there are three types of patents. With these in mind, you will be able to protect your novel ideas depending on which category it belongs to.
- Utility Patent – this is the most common type of patent given to inventors of new substances, pieces of equipment, or other materials invented.
- Design Patent – this kind of patent protects a person’s design or uniqueness from getting copied by someone else. They usually refer to furniture or other objects with unique design characteristics.
- Plant Patent – if you are a Botanist trying to reproduce plants asexually to create a brand new hybrid species, you can file for a plant patent to have complete control over your experiments and ideas.
Copyrights
Copyright protection is similar to patent protection. However, it is limited to specific works, such as photographs, paintings, films, literary works, live performances, and software. In reality, copyright protects a person’s exclusive right to perform, sell, or publish their original work in the fields of art, music, literature, architecture, and drama.
When you have the copyright to your work, you have the right to use, replicate, sell, or lease your product. Most artists in the music industry have copyrights over them. Hence, they can play their songs wherever they want. However, if the artist received payment for their creative rights while employed, there are copyright exclusions they should take note of.
Trademarks
On the other hand, whenever you create or make a logo or symbol to represent your business or products — having a trademark will allow you to use your unique logo exclusively. With trademarks, your customers will remember your products based on your symbol, which also lets the owner avoid competitors from copying their logos or emblems with their unique branding.
However, despite having a trademark – this intellectual property can’t stop your rivals from selling or creating the same products as you. Instead, they won’t only be able to copy or use your logo for their benefits. And though it’s not a requirement for businesses to register their trademark, doing so can still shield them from potential threats who would want to file their logos illegally.
Takeaway
To sum it up, patents are present to provide inventors or scientists full rights over their unique ideas and concepts that would benefit the people and whole society. Copyrights, on the other note, exist to shield artists from anyone illegally reproducing or playing their songs or other forms of art.
Simultaneously, trademarks benefit businesses and enterprises from having a unique identifier through their logos and symbolism, which protects them from rivals trying to copy their famous emblems.
In the end, if you are an inventor located in Orange County, California – the Orange County patent law can protect you and your work from potential copying. That’s why shield yourself now with the help of patent law attorneys who know best about this matter.