Copyright/Patent/Trademark - Assignment Example

Copyright/Patent/Trademark Copyright/Patent/Trademark Terms such as copyrights, patents and trademark often confuse many people. Nonetheless, they are terms used when referring to intellectual properties, which are intangible assets that hardly appear on financial statements. It is noteworthy that these three terms may have some similarities in terms of intellectual property protection; they are different and serve dissimilar tenacities (Sharpe, 2000).Copyright refers to a form of protection given to authors of “original work of authorship” such as artistic, musical, dramatic, literacy, and sometimes intellectual works, both unpublished and published.

For instance the 1976 Copyright Act gives a copyright owner exclusive right to produce the copyrighted work and distribute copies to the public without being restricted. The copyright is a form of protection that safeguards the form of expression instead of concept displayed in a writing art. For instance, a description of a weapon could be copyrighted, however, it would prevent such an act yet it would not prevent others from providing their own description of that specific weapon. A patentrefers to a grant of property right of an invention for a limited period.

For instance, under the U.S. law, the period is usually 20 years (Halpern, Nard & Port, 2011). A patent includes the right to bur others from selling, importing, or making the invention. A trademarkrefers to a symbol, name, device or word that is utilized when trading in goods or products to indicate the source of the product. Dratler (2001) reaffirms that trademark allows a company to differentiate its products from others thereby preventing others from manufacturing or selling the same products.

In sum, copyrights, trademark and patent play three major distinctive roles. Copyrights safeguard the specific creative countenance of an idea through any medium of ingeniousexpression. Trademarkssafeguard any symbol that indicates the origin or source of the goods or services to which it is affixed. Finally, patents safeguard functional expression of a particular idea.ReferencesDratler, J. (2001). Licensing of intellectual property. New York: Law Journal Press. Halpern, S. W., Nard, C. A., & Port, K. L. (2011).

Fundamentals of United States intellectual property law: Copyright, patent, trademark. Alphen aan den Rijn, The Netherlands: Kluwer Law International. Sharpe, C. C. (2000). Patent, trademark, and copyright searching on the Internet. Jefferson, N.C: McFarland.