Intellectual property is hard to scale because it is not a tangible object, which is when intellectual property attorneys are needed. In a court of law, there are ways you could measure what counts as intellectual property and what does not. Legal assistance, like hiring an Intellectual Property Attorney, can certainly help with that.
What Is Intellectual Property?
Intellectual property is the formation of a product derived from a person’s creativity, may it be a manuscript or choreography. IP can even include things like logos, designs, brand names, etc.
The four types of intellectual property are:
- Copyrights
- Copyrights are any right to new, original work giving ownership to authorship. Copyrights are filed when you want to legally protect what you created. This can be anything from sound recordings to literacy pieces.
- Patents
- Patents are filed to protect the property of intellect put to use. For example, anything that can be bought, sold, leased, used as collateral for loans, and even inherited.
- Trademarks
- Trademarks can be filed for legal protection on brand identity-type items. These kinds of items include logos, brand phrases/slogans, brand names, designs, etc.
- Trade Secrets
- Trade secrets protect, for example, “the secret sauce” to an ingredient. They protect items of intellectual property that are not outright given to the public but are necessary for brand owners to know for their business.
Examples of intellectual property include a copyright on a book, a trademark on a logo, a patent on a machine, and a trade secret on a secret recipe.
Filing or registering for one of the four IP’s to protect your brand, ideas, and items involved in your business can get complicated, which is why legal assistance is encouraged. Sanchelima & Associates, P.A. is one of the leading Intellectual Property law firms in South Florida and even the nation’s leading law firms for Patent and Trademark matters in Cuba.
What Does an Intellectual Property Attorney Do?
Legal assistance when protecting your intellectual property for your creative work is of use when you need help establishing the best avenue to take to protect your IP. At Sanchelima & Associates, P.A., we counsel our clients, besides just focusing on winning a case. We want to make sure they have everything they need to feel comfortable in making the decisions for their intellectual assets.
It is voluntary to file IP protections on your on the USPTO website, but without assistance and taking the “shortcut,” so-to-speak, can cost you more money down the line than it does doing it right the first time. There are plenty of rules and statutes that go along with filling out an application; attention to detail matters.
Legal assistance is also used to represent you in a court of law if your case comes down to such a situation.
Most Common Intellectual Property Lawsuit
Infringement is the probably most common intellectual property lawsuit. Infringement is when someone takes someone else’s work and presents it like it is their own. These disputes might be a copyright infringement, patent infringement, trademark infringement.
Some common infringement cases are:
- Taking the logo of one product and using it on another similar product
- Making a logo or creating a trade dress that tricks consumers into thinking they are buying an original product
- Trade dress: A trade dress is the appearance of a product associated with the brand. The most common example is a Coca-Cola bottle. If you see the bottle, you associate it with the brand. Or, for example, Converse shoes, Vans, etc. Trade dresses can even be the packaging of a product.
- Copying music, movies, photography, and other media without the permission of the inventor
- Manufacturing patented items and following the patent specifications without permission from the patent owner/inventor
Common Outcomes From Intellectual Property Litigation
Some outcomes we see in intellectual property litigation includes:
- Monetary damages: these settlements compensate the compliant party for losses caused by infringement.
- Cease and desist orders
- These are commonly used in trademarks used without permission.
- They are orders that warn the violating party to stop engaging in illegal activities or there can be more serious consequences, such as penalties, fines, or jail time.
- Confiscation of the property that is creating products in the infringement case
These outcomes are in consideration of the kind of violation each case deals with. Some cases can even result in criminal charges.
Save Time and Money in Legal Conduct
Getting legal assistance is an investment, but it is an investment that is worth every penny. You can be saving yourself a lot of time, receive easy-to-understand counseling, and you can save money on your business with accuracy in protecting your assets.
Legally filing for protection on your intellectual property, whether it be copyrights, patents, trademarks, or trade secrets, is beneficial to make sure what you created is all your own. This kind of protection could make you more revenue and save you the headache.
If you would like to learn more or see how you can make the most knowledgeable decisions, call Sanchelima & Associates, P.A. today. We are here to help clients, not cases.
