Photo by Martin Fisch is licensed under CC 2.0. If you are the creator of an original work, you may wonder how to secure a copyright for that work. Securing a copyright is surprising simple; so simple, in fact, that there is much misunderstanding surrounding the matter. How To Secure a Copyright Read more…
Photo by a.poll_o is licensed under CC 2.0. Registering your copyright with the United States Copyright Office puts the entire world on notice of your intellectual ownership of a specific work. It therefore makes sense that you must register your copyright before enforcing your rights against those who would infringe upon it. (See 17 Read more…
Photo by David is licensed under CC 2.0. The process for submitting an application to register your trademark with the United States Patent and Trademark Office can be long and taxing. So, once the process is complete and you have received your certificate of registration, you may be ready to breathe a Read more…
Photo by Akira Ohgaki is licensed under CC 2.0. A trademark and a service mark are essentially the same thing, so much so that the word “trademark” is often used to refer generically to both. While there is a technical distinction between the two, the legal protections afforded each are essentially the Read more…
Photo by torbakhopper is licensed under CC 2.0. If you own your own business, you know that protecting your brand is crucial. So, in order to secure the rights to your trademarks, you may have considered registering your marks with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). Filing a trademark application Read more…
Photo by a.poll_o is licensed under CC 2.0. No one is required to register his or her copyright. As I discussed earlier, failure to register a copyright limits the remedies available to copyright holders against those who infringe upon their works, but creators of original works still hold a copyright regardless of Read more…
Photo by Timothy Vollmer is licensed under CC 2.0. The protections of our copyright laws are not limited to the original works of Americans or even to works created within the United States. Congress has provided protections for certain foreign works as well. These protections, however, are not without limit and require Read more…
Photo by Kamal Hamid is licensed under CC 2.0. If you are the creator of an original work or you are looking to utilize the work of another, you may wonder, “How long a copyright lasts?” Once copyrights expire, the original works generally enter into the public domain, thereby allowing anyone to Read more…
Photo by Steve Jurvetson is licensed under CC 2.0. As I have discussed elsewhere, Congress has afforded the creators of original works with tremendous rights with regard to the use of their work. These rights, however, are not without limitations. (See 17 USC §§ 107-122). The most significant and prominent of these Read more…
Photo by Mike Seyfang is licensed under CC 2.0. Most people are vaguely familiar with the concept of a copyright. Copyright law, however, can be complex and is governed by a variety of rules and regulations with accompanying exceptions and limitations. Understanding the protections copyrights provide can, therefore, be quite difficult. So, what is Read more…