Copyrights / Trademarks / Patents

Copyrights - © or (c), is a means of protecting intellectual property rights. Intellectual property rights consist of patents, trademarks, trade secrets and copyrights. Copyrights and patents are specified in the US Constitution, as follows: "to promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries." Art. I, Sec. 8, cl. 8, Powers Granted to Congress.

What this means is that a copyright gives the author of the "work" exclusive rights to use and publish the information contained in the authors' work. "Work" is anything that is "reduced to a tangible means of expression." The right vests immediately upon creation but to get full protection, one must register the work to for copyright with the Library of Congress. Registration forms are available on-line for free and there is a nominal filing fee charge. Register online at Library of Congress. There are however, additional international protections that have been adopted by the United States, known as the Berne Convention.

Although copyright registration and enforcement is exclusively federal, there are state law copyrights. For example, when attending a concert or speech, should the author not reduce his work to a tangible means of expression, such as an impromptu analysis or speech, state law protects the author of the work. This is why at the beginning of shows an announcement is made that pictures, recordings, etc. are prohibited. This is state law copyright. A real interesting copyright case is the Martin Luther King "I have a dream" speech. At the time the speech was made, he had not registered the speech with the Library of Congress. When he spoke it (he did not read it) he was being recorded by audio and video without giving the state law warning of copyright claim. Thus, when the speech was reported in its entirety by the media, they became subject to the copyright infringement claims by Martin Luther King for monetary damages and injunctive relief. That is, it was his speech and the media did not want to pay him royalties. The defense was that he did not register, and failing to register at that time meant the "work" or "speech" was lost to the public domain. However, this defense failed and Dr. King was granted state law protection.

Other work protected by copyright, includes movies, songs, tape recordings, photographs, paintings, computer programs, virtually anything reduced to a tangible means of expression entitles the author to a copyright.

TradeMarks and Patents - There are three ways to protect a trademark: actual and continued exclusive use, state registration and federal registration. The filing fees are nominal and can be done on-line for federal registration at the United States Patent and Trademark Office. A trademark is the same as a brand. One of the most valuable trademark that I know of is the MGM trademark. It is also the simplest, as it only consists of the right to use the letters MGM with a roaring lion. It is so valuable that it has been sold many times amongst billionaires. Its only asset is recognition and good will. Yet, it is worth billions of dollars.

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