The material presented is general legal information intended to alert you to possible legal problems and solutions. This topic defines patent, trademark and copyright and discusses how to obtain a patent, the various types of patents and patent applications are also covered. The registration process for trademarks, service marks and copyrights also is explained. At the outset, you must recognize that patents, trademarks and copyrights provide protection for different things. Patents are intended to protect inventions of a functional or design nature.
Trademarks provide protection for identification in commercial trade.
Copyrights provide protection for literary and artistic expressions. Patents, trademarks and copyrights are collectively referred to as intellectual property. Patents are granted by the federal government to protect inventions. A utility patent gives the patent holder the right to exclude others from making, using, and selling his or her patent application invention for a period of 20 years from the date of filing the patent application. A utility patent may be obtained for processes, machines, articles of manufacture, or compositions of matter if the invention meets three basic criteria.