Trademarks & Copyrights

Intellectual property rights are often the most valuable asset of a business.  For a website or online business, intellectual property may constitute all of the valuable assets of the business.  It is crucially important for a web business to protect its trademarks and copyrights. 

There are two aspects to intellectual property protection: (1) at the front end, establishing your rights through a proper trademark or copyright registration, and (2) at the back end, pursuing infringers that are misusing your intellectual property through cease and desist letters, litigation or domain name arbitration.  We have extensive experience in protecting our clients intellectual property. 

Our intellectual property services include:

	drafting and filing federal and state trademark and service mark registrations;
	drafting, assembling and filing copyright registrations with the U.S. Library of Congress;
	drafting and negotiating assignment contracts;
	drafting and negotiating licensing agreements;
	enforcing trademark rights through domain name arbitration;
	enforcing copyrights for copyright owners;
	representing ISP's and related businesses that want to preserve their immunity under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, 17 USC §512.

Trademarks and copyrights are very different and protect different things.  A trademark protects your name, including your product and service names, logos, trade dress, and tag lines that identify your business from misuse by third parties.  Copyrights, on the other hand, protect your authored content, in any tangible medium, from use by third parties without your permission. 

Trademark rights can arise on their own over time based on use and the generation of secondary meaning in the eyes of the public but to achieve the full level of protection, it is better to register your marks with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).  Marks for products are called "trademarks" while marks for services are called "service marks."    

Copyrights arise automatically the moment your content is placed in tangible form (on a piece of paper, on a website, etc.).  To best protect your valuable copyright, however, it is often advisable to register your copyright with the United States Copyright Office.  This is also the office where you file your Designation of Agent for purposes of avoiding liability under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. 

We understand the technology and its use related to intellectual property.  If you have an issue or question regarding online intellectual property, contact us today. We'll let you know how we can help.