Intellectual Property: Patents, Copyrights, and Trademarks
Trademark
- a distinct logo, presentation, symbol, word, or a combination of them, that is used to identify a particular business or product. Trademarks are granted to the first user of the mark.
Types of Trademark:
1. Ordinary Marks
distinctive logos, symbols or words that are used to identify a product of a business or a business.
2. Certification Marks
are marks that certify that a product or service meet a defined standard.
3. Distinguishing Guise
the design of the product or packaging of the product that distinguishes it from others.
Patent
- A right for the exclusive manufacture, use and sale of an invented product or process. The Canadian government grants patent to the owner for a period of 20 years. Inventions may include processes, products, compositions, machines and methods.
Criteria for Getting a Patent:
1. Novelty
the invention should be new.
2. Inventive Ingenuity
the invention should not be obvious to people who are skilled in the technology involved. It could be a development or an improvement of an already existing technology.
3. Utility
the invention should be beneficial and useful.
Copyright
- Copyright is applicable to original records, computer software, dramatic, literary and artistic work, film, tv and radio programs and etc.
- Copyright is the owners’ exclusive legal right to publish, produce, reproduce, translate, present, record, and broadcast their work or a substantial part of it.
- Copyright last for the lifetime and 50 years after the death of the owner.