ANSWERED Explain the difference between a patent, a trademark, and copyright. Give one or two examples of each.

Patents, trademarks, and copyrights are all aspects of intellectual property rights that safeguard the legal rights of inventors, manufacturers, and artists. Their creations can be anything from a piece of art to a medicinal formula. Each type of intellectual property has its own attributes.

Patents: Patents are intellectual property rights over inventions, which generally applies to machines, manufacturing designs, medicinal formulas, and so on. Obtaining a patent for your invention prevents others from imitating and profiting from your work. The conditions for obtaining patent rights are that the invention must be novel, unique, and useful. There are three types of patents: utility patents (applicable to manufacturing and machinery), design patents (applicable to design and packaging), and plant patents (for new strains of plants). For example, a pharmaceutical company’s breakthrough invention for the treatment of a dreaded disease is eligible for a patent. Patents filed on or after June 8, 1995 have a 20-year term from their date of issue.

Trademarks: Trademarks consists of symbols, phrases, words, designs, and logos that are part of a particular brand and that distinguish it from other brands. Having a trademark prevents the unauthorized use of logos and symbols. For example, Nike’s swoosh symbol and the tag line “Just Do It” are registered trademarks. Trademarks are granted for an initial period of 10 years. After that, companies need to file renewals confirming that the trademarks are still in use in order to preserve them indefinitely.

Copyrights: Copyrights protect books, films, scripts, music, paintings, and other artistic or intellectual creations from plagiarism or copying. Under copyright law, the piece of work is the property of the creator for a specified number of years, after which it enters the public domain. At that time, people can freely copy and reproduce it. For example, research papers usually have copyrights. All works published in the United States before 1923 are no longer protected under copyright. Works published after 1922 but before 1978 are protected for 95 years from the date of publication. Works created but not published before 1978 are protected for 70 years after the death of the author.