Legal Question in Intellectual Property in Florida

Re: patents and copyrights

It seems you are very confused.

A patent cannot "be used as a copyright." Please see www.uspto.gov and www.copyright.gov for explanations of the different types of intellectual property and what they protect.

After you have read FAQs on patents and copyrights, please feel free to send a follow-up question(s) or you may email me directly. Note: if others may benefit from your Q and my A, you should send through LawGuru.

Re: patents and copyrights

What Is a Copyright?

Generally, a Copyright is a form of protection provided to the authors of �original works of authorship� including literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, and certain other intellectual works, both published and unpublished. A Copyright protects the form of expression rather than the subject matter of the writing. For example, a description of a machine could be copyrighted, but this would only prevent others from copying the description, it would not prevent others from writing a description of their own or from making and using the machine. Copyright attaches to all of your original works by merely "fixing" them in a tangible medium of expression. That is, you acquire copyright when you write or draw your work on paper, save your work on a computer disk, photograph, carvings or memorialize your work in any other medium.

What Is a Patent?

Generally, a patent protects the functional aspects of an invention and provides the inventor a temporary monopoly in exchange for a full description of how to perform the invention. A patent for an invention is the grant of a property right to the inventor, issued by the Patent and Trademark Office. A patent is an exclusive right to exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, or selling the invention in the United States or importing the invention into the United States. A patent for an invention may be granted to whomever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof. The term of a new patent is 20 years from the date on which the application for the patent was filed in the United States.

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