Missoula Trademark Attorneys & Lawyers

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:

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What Can Be Trademarked?

A phrase, word, symbol, device, or even a color are all eligible for a trademark. Anything that distinguishes the goods of your party or company from another qualifies. However, the item must be used in a commercial setting to obtain protection from the law. Trademarks have a 10-year protection span.

Trademark are important to:

• Distinguish your company from others
• Indicate the source of goods
• Distinguish your service from others
• Give permission to other companies for cobranding
• Indicate a membership in a union

A trademarkable symbol also lets customers know who you are. This is especially important when two companies in the same industry have a similar name, for example.

The three types

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How to Patent a Logo

While you can learn how to patent an idea, logos cannot be patented because the term patent describes ownership that protects inventions.

However, logos can be protected in a similar way by a trademark or service mark. Trademarks protect logos attached to products while service marks protect logos attached to services. Both trademarks and service marks are often referred to as trademarks. Following these established steps is the best way to trademark your logo.

Reasons to Trademark Your Logo

A logo is any design used by a person or company to promote its business interests. Logos can be images, stylized words, or a combination of these elements.

• Your logo is valuable. Logos are one of the most valuable assets any company has. Customers can identify a good logo in an instant.

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Willful Infringement: What Is It?

Willful infringement is when someone copies a claimed invention and knew the entire time that the invention was patented, thus committing patent infringement. An infringement is considered willful when:

• A defendant engaged in acts that infringed the patent or copyright
• The defendant knew those acts were in violation of the patent or copyright. They still acted as if they were ignorant of the law or had reckless regard for the patent or copyright holder's rights

Simply put, anyone who copies an invention after it has been patented on purpose has committed a willful infringement. However, the infringement is not considered willful if:

• the person has copied the invention without knowing it was patented 
• the person, in good faith, believes the patent is invalid or no longer appli

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What is Trademark vs. Patent?

A trademark protects a symbol, name, word, logo, or design used to represent the manufacturer of goods. A patent gives property rights to an inventor for a new product, preventing others from making an identical product. Many companies use both to protect intellectual property, although the two are not interchangeable.

What sets a trademark apart from other legal protections is that it only covers a single mark. That protection might be part of a logo, a symbol, a phrase, a word, or a design. But a trademark does not extend any protection to the products manufactured by the company that owns it. Another business or person can legally produce the same goods or offer the same services unless

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