According to the Copyright Act, the authors of a joint work jointly own the copyright in the work they create. A joint work is defined in the Copyright Act as “a work prepared by two or more authors with the intention that their contributions be merged into inseparable or interdependent parts of a unitary whole.” Read more about Joint Ownership under Copyright Law[…]
Trade dress is governed by the same set of laws that protect unregistered trademarks. While traditional trademark law protects words or logos, trade dress law protects the total packaging and design of a product. Because trade dress often serves the same function as a trademark or service mark — the identification of goods and services Read more about Trade Dress[…]
Trademark rights are gained by actual use of a mark rather than by registration. Generally, the first party who uses a mark in commerce has the right to use the mark in that geographic area as well as in the natural zone of expansion for that geographic area. Any shipment of goods bearing the trademark Read more about Actual and Intended Use of Trademarks[…]
One of the trickiest aspects of patent applications, particularly in the international context, is establishing the priority of patent rights. Rules applying to priority differ starkly between the United States and many foreign countries. The United States has a “first-to-invent” rule, which means that an inventor that can establish that he or she was the Read more about International Patent Rights[…]
For many years, there was only one type of patent application. The patent application required a specification or detailed description of the invention; a claim or claims detailing the elements of the invention for which patent protection is being claimed; any necessary drawings; an oath or declaration that the inventor is the original and first Read more about Provisional Patent Applications[…]