New Ideas In The New World

Whether you are a butcher, baker, or a candlestick maker or whether you live in West Chester, Pennsylvania, Wilmington Delaware, or any city in the USA, Americans use technology. We embrace new technology in many different industries and areas of commerce. Case in point, we admire young people who are exceptionally savvy with computers and their use of the internet.

It’s been said that America is built on ideas. Intellectual property such as patents, trademarks, and copyrights creates building blocks for those ideas. So our laws are structured to encourage and nurture these ideas and offer individuals who wish to pursue these ideas a means to develop them into meaningful and gainful opportunities.

To this end, the US government has created a patent system where an inventor and the government enter into a contract that gives the patent owner a monopoly on his or her idea in exchange for a complete public disclosure of the idea. The idea can be a man-made method or device that is new and non-obvious. The hope is that the patent encourages the inventor to invest into the idea and eventually profit from it while making the idea available to the public to improve and further invent. Society benefits with individual success stories and with continued technical advancements.

A trademark identifies your product or service with you or your company. Thus trademarks are a means to brand your product or service so that it will be associated by consumers to you or your company. Individual letters, words, or logos, in combination or alone, can be used to brand the product or service. Once established the government allows the company to have unique ownership as long as they continue to use the trademark in association with their products or services. Once again society benefits since consumers will be able to easily understand the origins and quality of their purchase.

Copyrights are created to provide a means of defending an idea such as an author’s novel, an artist’s painting, or a composer’s music. Copyrights protect any idea fixed in tangible form. Under certain situations, copyright protection is even available for source code written for certain computer applications.

Each of these three general areas provides different types of protection for your idea. Application of each would depend upon the individual situation. Therefore in each of these situations, the best approach in protecting your idea so that it becomes a success in business today and in the future is to make an informed decision for each step in its development.
Working with an experienced Intellectual Property Attorney will significantly help in making an informed decision and maximize the chances of success, creating the building block foundation for your idea. We can help. Call or email us today 610-268-5330 or jfaceto@acetoiplaw.com