The claims form a virtual fence around an invention and allow the patent owner to prevent others from making, using or selling the invention protected by the fence without authorization.
Generally, utility patents provide protection for 20 years from the date of filing. As an example of a claim, assume someone has invented the pencil and has described their pencil in detail in the patent.
Notice how the pencil claim could also cover other writing instruments such as a pen or even a tube of lipstick, both of which may have an elongate body and a marking material protruding from the elongate body. Trademarks, commonly brand names and logos, are source identifiers that are intended to protect the public from confusion about the origin of goods and services.
Trademark protection, unlike patent and trademark protection, can last forever provided the trademark owner renews their protection at appropriate intervals. The mere mention of famous trademarks like Coca-Cola, Rolex and Honda immediately bring to mind not only particular goods, but also characteristics and a certain level of quality, high or low, associated with those goods.
In the long run, joint ownership of such rights can cause confusion and legal issues threatening the security of these assets, causing harm to all parties involved. Awareness training will help fix and avoid possible Intellectual Property breaches, but only if it's tailored to the assets that a certain group of workers must protect.
Engineers and scientists pay close attention when you speak in concrete words about what they've spent a lot of time working on. Humans, as is so often the case, are the weakest link of the defense chain. That is why an IP security strategy that relies solely on firewalls and copyrights while ignoring employee knowledge and preparation is doomed to fail.
Most of the time, intellectual property IP gets leaked from a company through mistake or by incompetence. Ascertain that the workers are mindful of the ways in which they can unintentionally reveal IP. If possible, an exact-match domain name is one of the best intellectual property protection strategies for trademarks and copyrights that you already own. Though it can be a bit expensive, the long-term gains are unrivaled.
What would you do if you needed to spy on your own business? The intellectual property rights should be registered in a way that allows you to develop or modify them whenever required. If you find something new, when employed as an employee for example, for a corporation or an academic institution , the contract would almost definitely have a clause regarding it.
In most cases, the employer may get the first call on the invention, but there may be provisions in place to allow the employee to reclaim rights if the invention is not exploited within a given amount of time-in some nations, this is enshrined in statute.
It is also a wise decision to get some help from a legal agent during the drafting of non-disclosure legal provisions which needs to be clear and concise. Always make sure that all other contracts you use in your company help protect your IP. Jobs contracts, licenses, and distribution contracts are few examples. Contact a patent or trademark agent for help with searches and licensing to ensure that any intellectual property you create is adequately secured.
Any money spent on intellectual property is money that can't be spent on manufacturing, marketing, or other stuff, so consider why you're defending it. There are several legitimate reasons: to prevent anyone from copying you; to bring value to your business if you intend to sell it; to sell or license to a third party; to keep it in your armory if you suspect you will be sued and want to countersue.
Being the "first to apply" for a patent in the UAE is always the best and the safest way to defend your non-trade secret IP. Other than this, another common way to ensure that your Intellectual Property is recognised as yours is to publish and cite it extensively, always making sure that your company's name is credited to wherever it is listed.
The more people who see your intellectual property online, the more support your Patent can get. Make sure that you never share your idea with anyone before you have protected the same. This is because the other person might file for a patent before you and gain ownership rights over it. While a secret shared under a non-disclosure agreement NDA documents most people have heard about but probably never read , ought to stay secret, discussing an invention under the umbrella of confidentiality is no substitute for being able to freely discuss or publish an idea that is protected by a patent application.
Create a strategy that covers all of the intellectual property, including all inventions and technologies, concepts, trade secrets, original content, and domain names. A copyright is a type of intellectual property protection that protects original works of authorship , which might include literary works, music, art, and more. Today, copyrights also protect computer software and architecture.
Copyright protections are automatic ; once you create something, it is yours. However, if your rights under copyright protections are infringed and you wish to file a lawsuit, then registration of your copyright will be necessary.
Finally, the fourth type of intellectual property protection is a trademark protection. Remember, patents are used to protect inventions and discoveries and copyrights are used to protect expressions of ideas and creations, like art and writing.
Trademarks, then, refer to phrases, words, or symbols that distinguish the source of a product or services of one party from another. For example, the Nike symbol—which nearly all could easily recognize and identify—is a type of trademark.
While patents and copyrights can expire, trademark rights come from the use of the trademark, and therefore can be held indefinitely. Like a copyright, registration of a trademark is not required, but registering can offer additional advantages. Docketing is the overarching name for activities that include management of paperwork and meeting filing deadlines specified by the government patent office. Because the application process is often very complicated, patent offices highly recommend working with experienced patent attorneys to handle this process.
Once a patent is approved, it has a finite lifetime. Patent holders are responsible for maintaining and tracking the usage of their patents and paying the appropriate periodic government renewal fees.
If a given technology or other patented asset is collecting dust, you might not want to renew it. Instead, you can try and sell, license or donate it. Conversely, if a patented asset is performing well through product sales or licensing activities and its life is getting shorter, you might think about innovating ahead and maintaining competitive momentum. Maintenance fees over the lifetime of the patent can run into thousands more per patent, per country where patent rights have been granted.
You have to keep your eyes on these costs. A trademark is unlike a patent in that it protects words, phrases, symbols, sounds, smells and color schemes. Trademarks are often considered assets that describe or otherwise identify the source of underlying products or services that a company provides, such as the MGM lion roar, the Home Depot orange color scheme, the Intel Inside logo, and so on.
Trademarks do not necessarily require government approval to be in effect; they can apply through abundant use in interstate commerce. Still, registration of a trademark affords far superior protection and is gained by filing an application with the proper government office.
A trademark application requires the company or user to provide a clear description and representation of the mark and its uses in conjunction with associated products or services.
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