Intellectual Property

Trademarks include names, signs, logos, designs, phrases, slogans, expressions, and sometimes even colors, sounds, or smells that identify or distinguish one business compared to others. Trademark protection is fundamental in securing your “brand.”

Copyright covers original works of creative authorship fixed in a tangible medium of expression. This includes literary, dramatic, musical, and artistic works, such as poetry, novels, designs, movies, songs, computer software, and architecture. Copyright does not protect facts, ideas, systems, or methods of operation, although it may protect the way these things are expressed. Depending upon the type of work, “moral rights” (such as the right of attribution) may be implicated as well.

Trade secret laws can vary somewhat between states, but generally trade secrets cover information, including drawings, cost data, customer lists, formulas, recipes, patterns, compilations, programs, devices, methods, techniques or processes that derive economic value from not being generally known and are the subject of efforts that are “reasonable under the circumstances” to maintain secrecy.

Depending upon where you live or operate, there is a special patchwork of laws and regulations that protect and regulate personal information. If you are handling or giving out personal or potentially sensitive information, you may be implicating privacy laws.

Publicity rights address the commercial use of an individual’s face, name, image, or likeness. These rights vary state-to-state. Marilyn Monroe, for example, lived in multiple states which created complex questions about her publicity rights.