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Are you a small-business owner developing a product that you wish to protect from your competitors? Need to determine if your idea for a company or product name is already taken? You may be able to do much of this research yourself before you engage the services of a patent and trademark attorney.
What are patents, trademarks, and copyrights?
Patents: (Utility, Design, or Plant) protect inventions and improvements to existing inventions.
Trademarks: Are words, names, symbols, devices, and/or use images that are applied to products or used in connection with goods or services to identify their source.
Copyrights: Protect the expression of ideas in literary, artistic, and musical works.
Do you need a patent, trademark, or copyright?
Establishing a patent, trademark, or copyright on your ideas allows you to use the legal system to protect and profit from your intellectual property.
How do you search for patents & trademarks?
The United States Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO) has an invaluable tool for searching patents and trademarks on its Web site: http://www.uspto.gov/. USPTO Web Patent databases cover U.S. patents issued from January 1, 1976, to the most recent weekly issue date. You can search either the U.S. Patent Bibliographic database or the U.S. Patent Full-text database, and can display the full document images from the Full-text database. There is a separate database for searching trademarks or trade names.
A search of the patent and trademark databases is a good start for determining whether an invention, name, symbol, device, or idea has already been patented or trademarked. The next step may be to present this information to a patent and trademark attorney for review and further searching. The USPTO Web site has a roster of registered patent and trademark attorneys and agents at: http://www.uspto.gov/Web/offices/dcom/olia/oed/roster/index.html.
Where can you get help with the process?
The USPTO Web site is an excellent place to get started and can answer a wide variety of questions. There is also a network of Patent & Trademark Depository Libraries (http://www.uspto.gov/Web/offices/ac/ido/ptdl/index.html) around the country. There are typically one or two per state and they are located at large public or university libraries. These libraries house and make available to the public copies of patents and patent and trademark materials, including search tools, indices, and directories.
How do you apply for a patent or trademark?
Once you have contacted an attorney or agent, you may wish to begin the process of applying for a patent or trademark. Instructions for this process, as well as specifications for drawings, are located on the USPTO Web site. Application forms in PDF format are available on the Web site at: http://www.uspto.gov/Web/forms/index.html. Applications can be submitted online.
What about copyrights?
Copyrights protect literary, artistic, or musical works. A copyright may be used by a business to protect company brochures, annual reports, or other documents. Copyrights are handled by the Copyright Office of the Library of Congress. Their Web site, http://lcWeb.loc.gov/copyright/, covers everything from the basics of copyright, to searching copyrights, and the process of registering.
Should you bother?
Yes, by all means. If you go through the process of inventing a product, process, or device, if you come up with a great new name or slogan, or if you write a company document, spending the time to protect it can save your company's products or name and a great deal of legal trouble. Doing some of the preliminary research yourself can save a lot of money compared to having an attorney handle the entire process. The Internet makes the research very easy.
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