Intellectual Property, Copyright & Patents
Intellectual Property is anything that we think of that can be created or provided that has value such that is can be controlled, bought, sold, or shared.
- * If you plagiarize a school essay, it is considered illegal sharing of someone's intellectual property and it is wrong!
- * You cannot use someone's cookie recipe from their business to make the same exact cookie and sell it in your business.
- * If you know the story about how Facebook started, you would know there was a huge lawsuit arguing over who had the idea first and therefore who owned the intellectual property rights to the company and its huge profits.
So if you have an amazing idea that you think you could make money from, then you might want to consider your legal intellectual property rights!
The USPTO (United States Patent & Trademark Office) is the federal agency that issues legally protected trademarks and patents. Copyrights for written material, like books and articles, are issued by the Copyright Office at the Library of Congress.
With permission visit the USPTO database to search for any pending patents that may be similar to the idea you already came up with.
Click here: http://patft.uspto.gov/netahtml/PTO/search-bool.html
If you find nothing similar pending or patented in the database, you may be clear to apply for your own patent if you decide!!
Click here: http://patft.uspto.gov/netahtml/PTO/search-bool.html
If you find nothing similar pending or patented in the database, you may be clear to apply for your own patent if you decide!!