{"id":4125,"date":"2024-01-15T21:38:41","date_gmt":"2024-01-15T21:38:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thoughtstopaper.com\/blog\/?p=4125"},"modified":"2024-01-23T06:24:25","modified_gmt":"2024-01-23T06:24:25","slug":"types-of-intellectual-property-patent-vs-trademark-vs-copyright","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging.thoughtstopaper.com\/blog\/types-of-intellectual-property-patent-vs-trademark-vs-copyright\/","title":{"rendered":"Types of Intellectual Property: Patent vs Trademark vs Copyright"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Intellectual property are the intangible assets of a company. You cannot touch these assets like you can with physical assets such as a piece of machinery. Instead, intellectual property are non-physical assets but can be very valuable assets to your company. Learn about the different types of intellectual property your company may have and how to turn them into assets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Patents vs Trademarks vs Copyrights<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-table\"><table><tbody><tr><td><\/td><td><strong>Protects<\/strong><\/td><td><strong>Think if you have<\/strong><\/td><td><strong>Lasts for<\/strong><\/td><td><strong>Examples<\/strong><\/td><\/tr><tr><td><strong>Patents<\/strong><\/td><td>Inventions<\/td><td>New products, machines, or processes of doing something.<\/td><td>Up to 20 years for utility patents, 15 years for design patents.<\/td><td>The light bulb, the telephone, the Apple iPhone .<\/td><\/tr><tr><td><strong>Trademarks<\/strong><\/td><td>Brand names<\/td><td>Company names, product names, brand names, logos, slogan.<\/td><td>Potentially forever, as long as you keep using the trademark and renew it.<\/td><td>The Apple logo, the Nike swoosh, &#8220;Just do it.&#8221;<\/td><\/tr><tr><td><strong>Copyrights<\/strong><\/td><td>Creative works<\/td><td>Books, articles, paintings, songs, software code.<\/td><td>Up to 70 years after the author&#8217;s death.<\/td><td>The Harry Potter series, the Mona Lisa, Beethoven&#8217;s Fifth Symphony.<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Patents<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A patent protects <strong>inventions<\/strong>, which can be:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Products:<\/strong> New devices or machines, like a revolutionary engine design.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Processes:<\/strong> Innovative methods of doing something, like a novel drug manufacturing technique.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Compositions of matter:<\/strong> Unique creations like new chemical compounds or plant varieties.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Patents are granted to an inventor who has made an invention that is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thoughtstopaper.com\/knowledge\/patenting-criteria-novel-non-obvious-useful.php\">novel, nonobvious, and useful<\/a>. If granted a patent, the patent owner is the only person who can make and use the invention. Others who wish to make the invention must get permission from the patent owner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Trademarks<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A trademark protects <strong>brands<\/strong>, which can be:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Words:<\/strong> Brand names like Apple, Google, or Coca-Cola.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Symbols:<\/strong> Logos, icons, or designs like the Nike swoosh, the Starbucks siren, or the Twitter bird.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Phrases:<\/strong> Slogans or mottos like &#8220;Just do it,&#8221; &#8220;Melts in your mouth, not in your hand,&#8221; or &#8220;Think different.&#8221;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Combinations:<\/strong> Any mix of the above, like the McDonald&#8217;s golden arches and wordmark together.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Trademarks are granted to individuals and companies who use a word, symbol, or phrase as a brand in selling products or services. The trademark must be in use such as by labeling your product with the trademark. If you stop using a trademark, you will lose it. A trademark cannot cause confusion with other people\u2019s trademarks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Copyrights<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A copyright protects <strong>creative works<\/strong>, which can be:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Literary works:<\/strong> Books, poems, scripts, song lyrics, articles, blog posts, software code, etc.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Artistic works:<\/strong> Paintings, sculptures, photographs, graphic designs, etc.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Musical works:<\/strong> Compositions, recordings, musical notation, etc.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Dramatic works:<\/strong> Plays, movies, TV shows, scripts, etc.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Copyrights are granted to authors who have made an original creative work. This means you must make a new creative work and cannot simply make minor changes to the works of others. A copyright then allows you to control who can copy your creative work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Conclusion<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Intellectual property can be very valuable. Some companies make most of their money from giving others permission to use their intellectual property. For example, a company who doesn\u2019t want to make physical products protected by a patent can collect royalties from other companies who have the capability to make and sell the product. A company can collect fees for allowing others to use a trademarked brand name, think franchises that pay to use a well-known brand. A company can collect fees for allowing others to use a copyrighted story, think the Harry Potter series that has spun off into movies and theme park attractions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">To turn your intellectual property into an asset that you can control and potentially earn fees in allowing others to use, you will want to protect the intellectual property with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thoughtstopaper.com\/patent-applications\/provisional-patent-application.php\">patents<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thoughtstopaper.com\/trademark-application\/trademark-application.php\">trademarks<\/a>, and copyrights. Think about what intellectual property your company may have and discuss protecting them with an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thoughtstopaper.com\/trademark-application\/trademark-application.php\">intellectual property law firm<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Intellectual property are the intangible assets of a company. You cannot touch these assets like you can with physical assets such as a piece of machinery. Instead, intellectual property are non-physical assets but can be very valuable assets to your company. Learn about the different types of intellectual property your company may have and how&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":4127,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4125","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-patent-application"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.thoughtstopaper.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4125","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.thoughtstopaper.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.thoughtstopaper.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.thoughtstopaper.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.thoughtstopaper.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4125"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/staging.thoughtstopaper.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4125\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4133,"href":"https:\/\/staging.thoughtstopaper.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4125\/revisions\/4133"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.thoughtstopaper.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4127"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.thoughtstopaper.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.thoughtstopaper.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.thoughtstopaper.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}