Understanding Intellectual Property

Discover the basics of intellectual property rights, and how you can best safeguard your ideas and avoid infringement.

Introduction

• Welcome
• What is intellectual property?

1. Copyrights

• What is copyright law?
• Copyright ownership
• How long a copyright lasts
• Using others' work
• 10% myth
• Copyright infringement
• Infringement remedies
• Copyright infringement consequences
• Copyright defenses

2. Trademarks

• What is trademark law?
• Copyrights vs. trademarks
• Trademark rights
• Due diligence
• Losing a trademark
• Shapes and colors can be protected
• Preparing to trademark
• Trademark priority
• Trademarking your work
• Filing a trademark
• Filing a trademark internationally
• Common law trademark rights
• Filing different types of trademarks
• What to expect after filing
• Post-registration trademark maintenance
• Trademark infringement
• Consequences and defenses of infringement

3. Patents

• What is a patent?
• What does a patent look like?
• Provisional vs. utility patents
• Who can obtain patent rights?
• Sharing ideas prior to filing a patent
• Patenting software and applications
• Patenting your ideas
• Filing a patent application
• Patent ownership
• Myth of the poor man's patent
• Patent infringement
• Defenses and remedies to patent infringement

4. Trade Secrets

• What is a trade secret?
• What does trade secret law protect?
• Trade secret infringement
• Defenses and remedies to trade secret infringement

5. Rights of Publicity

• What is rights-of-publicity law?
• Model releases
• Post-mortem rights of publicity
• Exceptions to rights-of-publicity law
• Preventing rights-of-publicity infringement

Conclusion

• Next steps