Intellectual Property
Intellectual property refers to a category of intangible property rights comprising primarily patents, trademarks, copyrights, and trade secrets. Each of these four categories of intellectual property is further explained below.
- Patent
- Copyright
- Trademark
- Trade Secret
- Figure 1, Who owns what? Explains University policies about ownership of the different types of intellectual property
Patent
A patent for an invention is a grant of a property right by the Government to the inventor (or his or her heirs or assigns), acting through the Patent and Trademark Office. The term of the patent is 20 years from the date on which the application for the patent was filed in the United States or, if the application contains a specific reference to an earlier-filed application, from the date the earliest such application was filed, subject to the payment of maintenance fees. The right conferred by the patent grant extends only throughout the United States and its territories. The right conferred by the patent grant is "the right to exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, or selling" the invention in the United States or "importing" the invention into the United States. What is granted is not the right to make, use, offer for sale, sell or import, but the right to exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, selling or importing the invention. Some persons occasionally confuse patents, copyrights, trademarks, and trade secrets. Although there may be some resemblance in the rights of these four kinds of intellectual property, they are different and serve different purposes. Guide to Patents...
Copyright
Copyright is a form of protection provided by the laws of the United States to the authors of "original works of authorship" that are fixed in a tangible form of expression. The fixation need not be directly perceptible so long as it may be communicated with the aid of a machine or device. The original works include literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, and certain other intellectual works. These categories should be viewed broadly. For example, computer programs and most "compilations" may be registered as "literary works" while maps and architectural plans may be registered as "pictorial, graphic, and sculptural works." This protection is available to both published and unpublished works. The 1976 Copyright Act generally gives the owner of copyright the exclusive right to reproduce the copyrighted work in copies or phonorecords; to prepare derivative works based upon the copyrighted work; to distribute copies or phonorecords of the copyrighted work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending; to perform the copyrighted work publicly, in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and motion pictures and other audiovisual works; to display the copyrighted work publicly, in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and pictorial, graphic, or sculptural works, including the individual images of a motion picture or other audiovisual work; and in the case of sound recordings, to perform the work publicly by means of a digital audio transmission.
The way in which copyright protection is secured is frequently misunderstood. No publication or registration or other action in the Copyright Office is required to secure copyright. Copyright is secured automatically when the work is created, and a work is "created" when it is fixed in a copy or phonorecord for the first time. There are, however, certain definite advantages to registration.
Trademark
A trademark or service mark relates to any word, name, symbol or device which is used in trade with goods or services to indicate the source or origin of the goods or services and to distinguish them from the goods or services of others. Trademark rights may be used to prevent others from using a confusingly similar mark but not to prevent others from making the same goods or from selling them under a non-confusing mark. Similar rights may be acquired in marks used in the sale or advertising of services in the form of service marks. Trademarks and service marks which are used in interstate or foreign commerce may be registered in the Patent and Trademark Office.
Trade Secret
Trade secret means information, including a formula, pattern, compilation, program, device, method, technique, or process, that derives independent economic value, actual or potential, from not being generally known to the public or to other persons who can obtain economic value from its disclosure or use, and is the subject of efforts that are reasonable under the circumstances to maintain its secrecy. California Civil Code prohibits misappropriation of trade secrets by improper means. Improper means includes theft, bribery, misrepresentation,breach or inducement of a breach of a duty to maintain secrecy, or espionage through electronic or other means. Reverse engineering or independent derivation alone shall not be considered improper means.
Figure #1 below summarizes ownership of various types of intellectual property at the University of California.
