In the business world, it is important to protect the assets that are part of the business. Business owners must protect buildings, personnel, inventory, and all intellectual property associated with the business. Protecting a building, inventory, and business personnel can be easy by just making sure the property is protected from robbery, accident, and fire. Intellectual property can be trickier. They need to be protected by trademarks, patents, and copyrights. So, it is important to know what they are.
As a business owner, it is important to protect your intellectual property. Whether you are an owner, an inventor, or someone in the arts, the protection of your property is crucial for your success. A trademark, copyright, or patent will help safeguard your work and prevent your work from being plagiarized by others.
Businesses have identifiers that are used to help distinguish their brand in the marketplace. Trademarks can be applied to help protect their logos, design elements, font, font style, slogan, and other aspects of the marketing of the business. By trademarking these elements businesses can stop other competitors from using a similar look to fool customers into doing business with them instead of the original business.
Patents are issued by the Patent and Trademark Office to protect businesses for inventions that they have created. To receive a patent for the invention it needs to be new, useful, and different than any existing, similar inventions. Patents on new inventions are given for a twenty-year time period.
We have put together a number of helpful references for you to learn about trademarks, copyrights, and patents. Whether you are starting a new business or if you want to learn more we hope this information was helpful.