It is more than likely that unless you are a legal professional that you won’ understand a great deal about intellectual property rights, and you can certainly be forgiven for this. With that being said however anyone who operates in the world of business must have, at the very least, a basic understanding of what intellectual property rights are. Falling foul of the law here can have some serious consequences and so we spoke to the guys at MEM Concessions LLC, to find out more about what they entail.
Purpose
In Layman’s terms intellectual property rights are laws that have been put in place to protect the the ideas and the creations of people so that they are the only ones who can benefit from it. There are many aspects of intellectual property which we will detail below.
Patents – Patents are used to protect new inventions from being copied or profited from by anyone other than the creator of the invention. Sometimes the whole product will be patented or very often the invention fo a mechanism or a part can also be patented.
Trademark – A trademark is referred to as a sign or a symbol which identifies the company which uses it. This sign or symbol cannot be copied by another company regardless of where they are or what they do. An example of this would be the roaring lion of MGM Studios, this cannot be copied or reproduced unless authority is given.
Trade Secrets – The trade secrets act was brought in to protect the plans, strategies, formulas, devices or systems which company uses and prevent anyone else from using them. Let’s assume that you have developed a strategy on increasing sales to your company with a unique promotion and that information finds its way into the hands of another firm, they are not allowed to use this under the trade secrets act.
Moral Rights – Moral rights is what we use to refer to the powers that someone has who has created copyrighted information or content. Unless they give authorization someone else is not allowed to use their creation.
Unfair Competition – This act protects many businesses and seeks to prevent unfair competition from being created. In doing this the act prevents businesses from using false advertising, trade defamation or the misappropriation of a name or a likeness. This also includes the infringement of trademarks or copyrighted material.
Publicity Rights – Often referred to as personality rights this area of intellectual property rights forbids the use of a person’s image or personality unless consent has been given by the person that will be used.
As you can see there is much here to discover about intellectual property rights an in basic terms they are in place to protect you from being copied after creating something unique. If you are in any doubt about these rights then you should consult a legal professional.