Cinventure - For the Cincinnati Entrepreneur

How well do you understand intellectual property laws? Understanding these laws can provide your business with huge advantages if used correctly. Answer “True” or “False” to these questions to assess your comprehension:

1. A United States patent is enforceable in any country in the world.
2. It is a safe strategy to wait until sales of a product before deciding whether to file a patent application covering the product.
3. Once a patent is issued, it is enforceable forever.
4. An issued patent is considered confidential and proprietary to the patent owner.
5. An employee is obligated by patent law to assign the patent rights to her employer.
6. Copyright protection and patent protection are mutually exclusive.
7. If you copy less than 20% of a copyrighted work, it is “fair use” and not copyright infringement.
8. The copyright notice © is required for all copyrighted works.
9. A copyright owner must apply for a registration of the copyright at the time the work is created.
10. To be valid, a trademark must be registered with the United States Patent & Trademark Office.
11. A “made-up” name cannot serve as a trademark.
12. A trademak registration will expire after 50 years.
13. If a trade secret is disclosed inadvertently, it can still be protected as a trade secret.
14. Intellectual property laws do not apply in cyberspace.

Ready to score your answers?

All of the statements above are FALSE.

1. FALSE: United States patents are only enforceable in the United States.
2. FALSE: Once your idea is publicly disclosed you have a limited window of time to protect it with a patent.
3. FALSE: Patents are only enforceable for about 20 years.
4. FALSE: Patent materials are freely available to the public after the patent has been issued. Search around at the United States Patent & Trademark Office
5. FALSE: Only if the employee signed an agreement with the employer to do so before the patent was issued.
6. FALSE: A piece of work may be both copyrighted and patented.
7. FALSE: Althought difficult to enforce, it is better to just not copy works without proper attribution.
8. FALSE: If a work has an issued copyright, it is protected — regardless of the presense of a copyright notice.
9. FALSE: You may register for a copyright whenever you want. Enforcement in court, however, requires registration.
10. FALSE: To be valid, a trademark must be unique and actively used.
11. FALSE: Made-up names make some of the best trademarks.
12. FALSE: As long as a trademark is actively used, it will never expire.
13. FALSE: Guard your secrets closely.
14. FALSE: Intellectual property laws are particularly popular in cyberspace.

Thanks to Keith W. Johnson, JD., Assistant Director of the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Intellectual Property and Venture Development Department for this quiz! Read more about intellectual property at Wikipedia.

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