| Trademark Fair Use |
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| A party is entitled to use a trademark in such as way as to describe the qualities that a mark represents as long as the manner of use of the mark is not as a trademark but only used in a descriptive sense. Fair use of a trademark occurs when a defendant uses a descriptive trademark of another party to describe the defendant's own product. This is the fair use defense set forth in the Lanham Act that provides: More... |
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| Works of Authorship under the Copyright Act |
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| The Copyright Act uses the phrase "works of authorship" to describe the types of works that are protected by copyright law. This phrase is purposefully broad to avoid the need to rewrite the Copyright Act every time a new "medium" was discovered. Congress included a list of eight works of authorship in the Copyright Act as follows: More... |
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| Patent Law |
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| In order to be novel, an invention cannot have been previously patented, described in a printed publication, or used or known by others prior to its invention by the patent applicant. To be known by others, a patent must have been fully disclosed and the disclosure must be accessible to the public in the United States. Only minimal use of an invention by others is necessary to disqualify patent eligibility as long as the use is accessible to the public, which is the case if no steps were taken to conceal the use. Experimental use by the inventor to test the invention is not a use that will disqualify patent eligibility. Printed publication of a description constitutes accessible disclosure of the invention as long as the publication is distributed or is filed in such a way that a member of the public could find it by exercising reasonable diligence. Patents are usually published, which also constitutes printed publication that will negate patent eligibility. If a patent is not published, the relevant inquiry is whether the exact thing to be patented was previously patented and not merely described in an application that ultimately protected some other invention. More... |
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| Trade Names |
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| The term ''trade name'' means any name used by a person to identify his or her business or vocation. ''Trade name'' refers mainly to the corporate, partnership, or other name of a business. The business may, in turn, market goods or services under one or more trademarks or service marks. More... |
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| Publication |
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| Publication was the key to obtaining federal copyright under the Copyright Act of 1909. Publication is still important to copyright owners but it is no longer the key. Publication is defined in the Copyright Act of 1976 as "the distribution of copies or phonorecords of a work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending. The offering to distribute copies or phonorecords to a group of persons for purposes of further distribution, public performance, or public display constitutes publication. A public performance or display of a work does not of itself constitute publication." More... |
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