What is a Trademark or Service Mark?

Trademarks and service marks are the legal means for controlling your products, and domain names, in the marketplace. A trademark is any word(s), phrase, logo, design, or other indication of ownership, or a combination of those that identifies the source and quality of goods or services. Trademarks identify goods; service marks are for services. A federally registered mark provides 8 practical legal benefits including nationwide constructive use, and nationwide priority of use of the mark with the registered products. TechLaw Ventures can assist you with trademark selection and the entire U.S. and foreign trademark application process, helping you secure and maintain meaningful trademark rights to protect and control your valuable brands, domain names, trademarks, and trade dress, and defend them against infringement.

What is a Copyright?

A copyright is an artistic, literary, or intellectually created work of authorship. Example of copyright protectable works include novels, lyrics, music, movies and videos, software source code, photographs, sculptures, and paintings. For copyright protection a work of authorship must be original and exist in a tangible medium of expression, such as paper, canvas, film, or digital media. A copyright provides the practical benefit of protecting an author’s exclusive right to change, reproduce, distribute, and perform or display the created work, and prevents other people from modifying, copying or exploiting the creation without the copyright holder’s permission. There is an area of overlap between copyright and design patent statutes where the author/inventor can obtain both a copyright registration and a design patent. Thus, an ornamental design may have a copyright as a work of art, and may also be subject matter of a design patent. Our attorneys are here to assist you through the entire copyright application process and helping you secure meaningful copyright registrations to protect your valuable works of authorship and intellectual property rights.