Kailua Trademark Attorneys & Lawyers

When Do You Need Permission to Use a Logo?

A logo or trademark is any photograph, word, or symbol used to identify a brand, service, or product. You need permission to use a logo unless it is for editorial or information purposes, such as when a logo is used in a written article or being used as part of a comparative product statement.

Other than these two instances, you should never assume you can use a trademarked logo. A person or company should never use a trademark or logo without written permission from its owner. To get permission, write a letter to the trademark owner. Include a description of why you are asking and how the logo will be used. Third parties should never use someone else's logo without a licensed agreement, including program and corporate logos.

In certain cases, a person or company involved in logo programs give third parties standing permission to

...

What Is DMCA Protection?

The DMCA, or the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, protects creative works on the internet and contains the legal foundation for rights management in digital works. It covers things such as articles, videos, and photographs.

The DMCA protects both copyright owners and internet service providers (ISP), otherwise known as online service providers (OSP). To warn would-be content thieves away, you can use a DMCA Protection Badge on your website.

Copyright Owners

The DMCA gives copyright owners a simple and straightforward way to get their content removed from websites that don't have permission to use it. They can do this by sending a DMCA takedown notice to the ISP that hosts the offending content. ISPs

...

What Is a Patent Citation Search?

A patent citation search is a patent search of the titles that legally protect inventions from infringement and describe in detail how these inventions look and work based on the references they provide. You can search for patent citations on their own or use a patent citation search to enhance a keyword or classification search.

What Is a Citation?

When dealing with citations, there are two primary types: forward and backward, or reverse. While the definition may seem simple, forward citations are actually a derived artifact of reverse citations. The type of citation will depend on the point of view.

In essence, all citations will begin as a backward one. To determine a backward citation requires the processing of forms 1449 and 892 in the United States. Foreign jurisdictions will have their own forms. When a patent has been gr

...

What Is Intellectual Property?

Intellectual property (IP) is a general term for the rights recognized by U.S. law for creations of the mind, including:

• Patents - rights granted to inventors for novel and useful inventions.

• Trademarks - rights granted to businesses relating to the branding of their goods and services (company, product and service names).

• Copyrights - rights granted to authors for tangible expressions of ideas (art, literature, music, software code, architectural plans).

• Trade secrets - rights granted to businesses relating to their unique and valuable intangible assets (business processes, client and customer lists, procedures, practices, formulae, research notes,

...

Copyrights, trademarks, patents, and licenses are each a different form of intellectual property (IP) rights protection recognized by U.S. law. The distinctions among them can be subtle and often the same product or service may involve more than one of these IP rights. How can you tell them apart when deciding how to protect your company’s assets? Here’s how.

Copyrights

Copyright protects the rights of “authors” in their original creative works. Copyrightable works include artistic creations, like novels, paintings, films, and songs, but also business-related works like software code, website designs, architectural drawings, marketing reports, and product manuals.

The author of a copyrighted work has the exclusive right to:

• Reprodu

...