Video Transcript

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Hey there, I’m Gary Schuster, your friendly neighborhood inventor, and this is Innovation Cafe. Today we’re going to talk about the various kinds of intellectual property.

Now, what is intellectual property? Intellectual property, put briefly, is something that anyone can copy — and copy without taking away your copy — but for government laws preventing it. So if I were to say, take your shoes, would you still have a pair of shoes? No, of course not. I would have your shoes; you would no longer have that pair of shoes. Now, if you were to take a photograph of me — please do, I’m very, very photogenic — but if you were to take a photograph of me, you would still have your copy of the photograph even if I went and copied it and sent that copy to a thousand people. A thousand people could have it, and you would still have your copy.

So what do we take away from that? We take away from that that intellectual property is simply a set of laws designed to allow you to control something that anyone can copy. So let’s talk about the main kinds.

The first one is patents, and patents are of a few different kinds. The main kind of patent that you’re going to hear about is the utility patent, and what that is, is it protects a useful invention. It could be a process, it could be a machine, it could be a composition of matter. It could be a new and useful improvement to any of those things. And the way it works is you file an application with the government, and the government, if they think it’s novel and not obvious, will give you an exclusive right to practice that invention for 20 years from the date you file. That’s a utility patent.

There’s also a design patent, and a design patent protects the ornamental appearance of something. So if you design a really cool-looking chair, and the coolness of the chair is in the way it looks rather than the way it functions, that’s a design patent. Design patents last for 15 years. And then there are plant patents, which is exactly what it sounds like — a patent on a plant.

There are then trademarks. And what is a trademark? Well, a trademark is designed to prevent consumers from becoming confused as to the origin of goods or services. So trademarks are actually designed not to protect the company that is using the mark, but to protect consumers from getting ripped off. So if I go to the store and I see Norton Antivirus and Norton Super Duper Antivirus, and Norton Super Duper Antivirus is made by a company other than Norton, well, that’s a violation of the trademark. I’ve been deceived as a consumer, and you can bet Norton’s going to sue whoever is making Norton Super Duper Antivirus. So that’s how trademarks work and are enforced — to protect people.

The next one is copyrights. Now, these things last — well, I’m not going to say forever, but essentially forever. Anything that is created from this point forward will never in my lifetime be free to use. The copyright is never going to expire.

Now, another thing about copyrights — and I made a whole video about this — is the concept of fair use. But briefly, fair use is a defense. It’s not an affirmative right. So if someone says to you, “Hey, you’ve infringed my copyright,” and you say, “No, I was using it under fair use,” you are essentially saying, “Yes, I used your stuff, but I had a right to use it.” Fair use is a complex legal area, and I would encourage you to watch the video I did on it.

One of the biggest misconceptions about copyright, especially in the age of the internet, is that you own the copyright to a photograph that is taken of you. You don’t. The photographer owns the copyright. So when you go and get family photos done, or wedding photos, you know it’s not a big deal if someone takes a family photo because they’re going to give you prints of it or a digital copy of it. But be aware that you’re not going to own the copyright to it.

Let’s look at trade secrets. Now, this is kind of cool because the US government passed something called the Defend Trade Secrets Act, and what did it do? Well, it took trade secrets, which had formerly been something that was dealt with separately in every state in the union, and created an overarching federal legal framework for it. So now your trade secrets are protected on a federal level and a state level, and in most countries.

What’s a trade secret? Well, I did another short about that and I’ll link to it, but it’s essentially something you keep secret. No one else can steal it without getting sued, but if someone develops it on their own, then they’re okay. Think about the formula for Coca-Cola as being sort of the archetypal trade secret.

So those are the main kinds of intellectual property that are out there. And I’d encourage you, whatever you’re creating, to think about how one or more of these categories might apply to your work, and consider protecting it. Thanks for watching!