A copyright is the protection given to the creator of a literary or artistic work. Anything that cannot be placed within one of the seven categories listed cannot be protected by copyright. While there are exceptions, anyone who copies a work that is protected by copyright has committed copyright infringement and is liable for civil damages and criminal penalties. The fair use doctrine allows copyrighted material to be used for any of the enumerated purposes without penalty. A trademark is a distinctive mark or symbol that one places on products that will be distributed to the general public.
Trademarks enable the public to vouch for the authenticity of the products.
Thus, as long as a trademark is truly distinctive and not similar to other trademarks, the owner can register it and prevent it from being duplicated by others. In order to receive a patent, the inventor must demonstrate that the object for which a patent is sought is genuine, novel, useful and not obvious in light of current technology. In fact, in 1996 Congress passed the Economic Espionage Act of 1996, making it a federal crime to steal trade secrets. Given the proliferation of computers, many of the legal devices discussed above have special application to computers and the Internet. To clear any uncertainty, Congress passed the Computer Software Copyright Act in 1980.