COPYRIGHT vs. TRADEMARK vs. PATENT

PATENT vs. COPYRIGHT vs. TRADEMARK

Some people confuse patents, copyrights, and trademarks. Although there may be some similarities among these kinds of intellectual property protection, they are different and serve different purposes. 

What Is a Patent?

A patent for an invention is the grant of a property right to the inventor, issued by the Patent and Trademark Office. The term of a new patent is 20 years from the date on which the application for the patent was filed in the United States or, in special cases, from the date an earlier related application was filed, subject to the payment of maintenance fees. US patent grants are effective only within the US, US territories, and US possessions.

The right conferred by the patent grant is, in the language of the statute and of the grant itself, "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.

What Is a Copyright? 

A Copyright protects original creative works such as books, movies, songs, paintings, photographs, web content and choreography. As the owner of a federally registered copyright, you can control how your work is reproduced, distributed and presented publicly, and you can sue infringers in federal court and prevent others from importing infringing goods.

Copyright is a form of protection provided to the authors of "original works of authorship" including literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, and certain other intellectual works, both published and unpublished. The 1976 Copyright Act generally gives the owner of copyright the exclusive right to reproduce the copyrighted work, to prepare derivative works, to distribute copies or phonorecords of the copyrighted work, to perform the copyrighted work publicly, or to display the copyrighted work publicly.

The copyright protects the form of expression rather than the subject matter of the writing. For example, a description of a machine could be copyrighted, but this would only prevent others from copying the description; it would not prevent others from writing a description of their own or from making and using the machine. Copyrights are registered by the Copyright Office of the Library of Congress. 

What Is a Trademark or Servicemark?

A trademark is a word, name, symbol or device which is used in trade with goods to indicate the source of the goods and to distinguish them from the goods of others. A servicemark is the same as a trademark except that it identifies and distinguishes the source of a service rather than a product. The terms "trademark" and "mark" are commonly used to refer to both trademarks and servicemarks.

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 the same goods or services under a clearly different mark. Trademarks which are used in interstate or foreign commerce may be registered with the Patent and Trademark Office. The registration procedure for trademarks and general information concerning trademarks is described in a separate pamphlet entitled "Basic Facts about Trademarks". 

A Trademark protects names, terms and symbols that are used to identify the source of goods and/or services on the market. In other words, a trademark lets the consumer distinguish one company's offerings from another's. Trademarks include brand names such as "Coca-Cola" and images such as Nike's famous "swoosh." As the owner of a federally registered trademark, you can sue for trademark infringement in federal court and prevent the importation of foreign goods that display your trademark. 

Copyright vs. Trademark

1.   The purpose of a copyright is to protect works of authorship as fixed in a tangible form of expression. Thus, copyright covers: a) works of art (2 or 3 dimensional), b) photos, pictures, graphic designs, drawings and other forms of images; c) songs, music and sound recordings of all kinds; d) books, manuscripts, publications and other written works; and e) plays, movies, shows, and other performance arts. 

2.   The purpose of a trademark is to protect words, phrases and logos used in federally regulated commerce to identify the source of goods and/or services. 

3.   There may be occasions when both copyright and trademark protection are desired with respect to the same business endeavor. For example, a marketing campaign for a new product may introduce a new slogan for use with the product, which also appears in advertisements for the product. However, copyright and trademark protection will cover different things. The advertisement's text and graphics, as published in a particular vehicle, will be covered by copyright - but this will not protect the slogan as such. The slogan may be protected by trademark law, but this will not cover the rest of the advertisement. If you want both forms of protection, you will have to perform both types of registration. 

4.   If you are interested in protecting a title, slogan, or other short word phrase, generally you want a trademark. Copyright law does not protect a bare phrase, slogan, or trade name. 

5.   Whether an image should be protected by trademark or copyright law depends on whether its use is intended to identify the source of goods or services. If an image is used temporarily in an ad campaign, it generally is not the type of thing intended to be protected as a logo. 

6.   The registration processes of copyright and trademark are entirely different. For copyright, the filing fee is small, the time to obtain registration is relatively short, and examination by the Copyright Office is limited to ensuring that the registration application is properly completed and suitable copies are attached. For trademark, the filing fee is more substantial, the time to obtain registration is much longer, and examination by the Trademark Office includes a substantive review of potentially conflicting marks which are found to be confusingly similar. While copyright registration is primarily an administrative process, trademark registration is very much an adversarial process. 

7.   Copyright law provides for compulsory licensing and royalty payments - there is no analogous concept in trademark law. Plus, the tests and definition of infringement are considerably different under copyright law and trademark law. 

Brand vs Trademark

Brand vs Trademark

Brand Names Defined

The Blackcoffee website article, "Creating a Brand Name," states that brand names are signals that carry meaning in the minds of consumers. A brand name should be memorable so that it carries a favorable image of your business in the minds of customers you wish to attract. When people see or hear the words "Kentucky Fried Chicken" or "Wal-Mart," they immediately know what those brands stand for. These brand names are also trademarks of these companies.

Trademark Definition

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office defines a trademark as words, names, symbols and product design features that are used to distinguish the products or services of one manufacturer or seller from another.

Purpose

The goal of a brand name is to provide an easy to recognize and remember name that evokes a positive response in consumers. For example, many shoppers prefer to buy "brand name" products as opposed to the generic kind because of their perceived value.

A trademark provides legal protection of the brand name. Through registration, the company is able to seek legal action against others who copy or use the brand without permission.

Difference

It is commonly seen that people remain confused between brand and trademark of a company. The two concepts, despite many similarities have different purposes and nature that people either overlook, or are not aware of. Using them interchangeably as if the two were synonyms is a big mistake that many people commit, but this is perhaps because of the fact that all trademarks are brands, whereas not all brands are trademarks. In this article, differences between the two concepts will be highlighted for the benefit of those who fumble between them.

Did you know, the word brand comes from brandr meaning to burn? It actually, comes from an ancient practice of applying hot iron stamp on the body of sheep to differentiate them from other sheep. This branding ensured the owner could know instantly if the sheep was indeed his or not. In fact, branding sheep became so common place that when certain rancher called Samuel Maverick decided to leave his sheep unbranded as all others in his area were branded and he did not need any branding, the word maverick got associated with unbranded cattle.

It was after industrial revolution that factories could produce goods at a mass scale, and this necessitated their sale in wider areas. Factories wanted their goods to be known and remembered in larger areas, and this led to the development of brands that allowed people to know about a particular product just hearing the name. Do you need anything more after you hear names like IBM, Apple, Coca-Cola, KFC, Wal-Mart, and so on? This is what is known as brand power. When a brand is registered with the Patent and Trademarks office, it becomes a trade mark. Thus, there is not much of a difference between a brand and a trademark. Trademark is a legal device that protect unlawful use of the brand name by any one else, and grants the owner of the trademark exclusive rights over the use of the brand name.

Brand names are like signals that convey a meaning in the minds of consumers, and creates a favorable image of a product in their minds to attract them to the products or services of the company. Brand name has a commercial purpose and recollection value in the minds of the customers. Mostly brand names are visual identifiers of a business there are cases where a sound has become a brand name as in the case of MGM (the roar of a lion ) and Nokia (the original Nokia ring tone). Trade mark is in itself just a protector of a brand, and it gives the owner right to sue any unauthorized use of the trademark.

A brand is an image, a set of promises made by a company about its product, high quality, durability, and ease of use of a product as the case may be. It is this brand image that produces consumer loyalty, something that holds much greater value to a company than 100’s of one time customers.

Trademark Vs. Trade name

Trademark Vs. Trade name Usage

Most lay people find the law and terminology surrounding trademarks and tradename to be confusing.

The formal name of a business is call its tradename. The name the business uses to market its products and services is call a trademark.

The distinction between tradenames and trademarks can be a little confusing because many small businesses use at least a part of their tradename as their trademark. Large businesses commonly use different names for their trademarks.

The distinction between a corporate name and a fictitious name can also be confusing. A corporate name is the tradename of a corporation that is registered in the Secretary of State's Office. Normally, the corporate name is followed by a corporate identifier, such as INC. or INCORPORATED, or CORP. or CORPORATION.

In some instances, individuals or partnerships will adopt a fictitious business name. When they do, they must file a fictitious name statement with the Department of Licensing.

To provide notice that a name has been adopted and used as a trademark, it is recommended that the business place a small "™" symbol after the mark. Such a symbol is not used with tradenames.

A trademark (including a service mark) gives you the legal right to go to court to stop everybody else from using the same “word, phrase, symbol or design, or … combination of words, phrases, symbols or designs” to identify their businesses wherever you have that trademark registered. The U.S. Patent & Trademark Office notes that registering a federal trademark gives you “the exclusive right to use the mark nationwide on or in connection with the goods/services listed in the registration.” A state trademark or service mark works exactly the same way, but only within the borders of the state(s) where you have it registered.

A trade name, however, is something only the states worry about, and they worry about it usually because they want to be able to find (and to tax) the person or persons behind the curtain of the trade name. Some states require trade name registration; some make you register with local or county governments; some don’t require it at all. The SBA has links to all states where you can check the rules where you live.

A registered trademark is a form of legal recognition of your right to use a particular “word, phrase, symbol or design, or a combination of words, phrases, symbols or designs, that identifies and distinguishes the source of the goods of one party from those of others.” There’s also a type of trademark called a service mark which does the same thing for services, rather than goods. The term trademark includes both.

A trade name, on the other hand, is nothing more than the name you choose — other than your own individual name — for your business. The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) explains: “a trade name is the official name under which a company does business. It is also known as a “doing business as” name, assumed name, or fictitious name.”