Intellectual Property Law

Intellectual Property Workshop

Fall Semester 2008

What is intellectual property?

• Copyrights

• Trademarks

• Patents

• Trade Secrets

Copyrights

• Written works• Musical compositions• Photographs• Films• Sound recordings• Videos• Paintings and sculptures

What is a copyright?

• Copyright is a form of protection provided by the laws of the United States (title 17, U. S. Code) to the authors of “original works of authorship,” including literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, and certain other intellectual works.Copyright Basics

What is a trademark?

• A trademark or trade mark[1] is a distinctive sign or indicator of some kind which is used by an individual, business organization or other legal entity to uniquely identify the source of its products and/or services to consumers, and to distinguish its products or services from those of other entities. A trademark is a type of intellectual property, and typically comprises a name, word, phrase, logo, symbol, design, image, or a combination of these elements. There is also a range of non-conventional trademarks comprising marks which do not fall into these standard categories.

Examples:

Mead Data Central, Inc. v. Toyota Motor Sales USA, Inc.

• 875 F.2d 1026 (2d Cir. 1989)• The only finding that supports a likelihood of dilution is the district court's conclusion that LEXUS eventually

may become so famous that members of the general [**43] public who now associate LEXIS or LEXUS with nothing at all may associate the terms with Toyota's automobiles and that Mead's customers may think first of Toyota's car when they hear LEXIS. See Dist. Ct. Op. at 30-31. This analysis is problematic. First, section 368-d protects a mark's selling power among the consuming public. Allied Maintenance Corp. v. Allied Mechanical Trades, Inc., 42 N.Y.2d 538, 369 N.E.2d 1162, 399 N.Y.S.2d 628, 630 (1977); Sally Gee, Inc. v. Myra Hogan, Inc., 699 F.2d 621, 624-25 (2d Cir. 1983). Because the LEXIS mark possesses selling power only among lawyers and accountants, it is irrelevant for dilution analysis that the general public may come to associate LEXIS or LEXUS with Toyota's automobile rather than nothing at all. Second, the district court offered no evidence for its speculation that LEXUS's fame may cause Mead customers to associate "lexis" [*1040] with Toyota's cars. It seems equally plausible that no blurring will occur -- because many lawyers and accountants use Mead's services regularly, their frequent association of LEXIS with those services will enable LEXIS's mark to withstand Toyota's advertising campaign.

What is a patent?

• A patent is a set of exclusive rights granted by a state to a patentee for a fixed period of time in exchange for a disclosure of an invention.

• The procedure for granting patents, the requirements placed on the patentee and the extent of the exclusive rights vary widely between countries according to national laws and international agreements. Typically, however, a patent application must include one or more claims defining the invention which must be new, inventive, and useful or industrially applicable. The exclusive right granted to a patentee in most countries is the right to prevent or exclude others from making, using, selling, offering to sell or importing the invention.

Example:

• Patenting DNA• Welcome to the DNA Patent Database

• This database serves as a resource for policy makers and members of the general public interested in fields like genomics, genetics and biotechnology. The DNA Patent Database (DPD) contains a collection of DNA-based patents and patent applications issued by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and makes the full-text of such patents and applications available to users at no cost.

• The production of this database is supported by grants from the ELSI programs of the National Human Genome Research Institute, NIH, and the Office of Science, U.S. Department of Energy. The DPD is a core of Duke University's Center for Excellence in

ELSI Research (CEER) project.

Trade Secrets

• A trade secret is a formula, practice, process, design, instrument, pattern, or compilation of information used by a business to obtain an advantage over competitors or customers. In some jurisdictions, such secrets are referred to as "confidential information".

Example

• Published accounts say it contains or once contained sugar crystals, caramel, caffeine, phosphoric acid, coca leaf and kola nut extract, lime extract, flavoring mixture, vanilla and glycerin. Merchandise 7X is the "secret ingredient" in Coca-Cola and has apparently remained a secret since its formulation in 1886. Alleged syrup recipes vary greatly, and Coca-Cola reluctantly admits the formula has changed over the decades. For example, the formula was changed in 1935 with the help of Rabbi Tobias Geffen of Atlanta to allow it to be certified kosher.

Plagiarism

• Ghostwriting

• Word for Word

• Patchwork Plagiarism

• Unacknowledged Paraphrases

The Da Vinci Code