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Intellectual Property refers to creations of the mind - creative works or ideas embodied in a form that can be shared or can enable others to recreate, emulate, or manufacture them. There are four ways to protect intellectual property - patents, trademarks, copyrights or trade secrets.[USPTO.gov]

Copyrights

Copyrights protect original works of authorship including literary, dramatic, musical, and artistic works, such as poetry, novels, movies, songs, computer software, and architecture. Copyrights only protect the physical work and not the facts, ideas, systems, or methods of operation behind the works, although it may protect the way these things are expressed. Copyrights are created instantly and multiple contributors can have rights in the same work. Additional information can be found at the USPTO site: Copyright Policy

Trademarks

Trademarks are words, names, symbols, sounds, or colors that are the face of the company and allow customers to easily identify and authenticate the source of a service or product. Trademarks have the potential to be renewed indefinitely if used continuously. Additional information can be found at the USPTO site: Trademark Basics

Trade Secrets

Trade secrets consist of information and can include a formula, pattern, compilation, program, device, method, technique or process. To meet the most common definition of a trade secret, it must be used in business, and give an opportunity to obtain an economic advantage over competitors who do not know or use it.Additional information can be found at the USPTO site: Trade Secret Policy

Patents

Patents are granted for inventing new and useful processes, machines, articles of manufacture or compositions of matter. The inventor is granted the sole right to exclude others from making, using, offering to sell, or selling the invention. There are three types of patents - utility, plant and design. There are two levels of utility applications - provisional and non-provisional. More information can be found at the United State Patent and Trademark Office site: General Information Concerning Patents

Foreign Patent Coverage »

Foreign Patent Coverage

If inventors want protection that extends outside of the United States, they need to look to foreign filing. Sales, licensing, or manufacturing the technology internationally, requires inventors to secure the foreign rights to gain the protection in applicable countries. Even if the inventor is unsure of whether they will need foreign protection in the future it is advantageous to secure the foreign rights and not use them rather than need the rights, but be unable to obtain them due to missing statutory deadlines. Once the choice is made to seek foreign patent protection, there are two treaties that allow for and cover foreign patents; the Paris Convention and the Patent Cooperation Treaty. The Paris Convention is the older of the two and allows the member countries access to each other's intellectual property. The fairly new Patent Cooperation Treaty creates an international application that unifies the filing procedure throughout much of the world.

Paris Convention
If the inventor does not wish to file in a large number of countries, they can file directly with the foreign country’s patent office. The United States Patent Office (USPTO) is a regional patent office, as is the European Patent Office (EPO) even though the EPO covers 36 countries. When filing with a regional patent office, the regional patent office rules apply and must be followed to obtain the patent.

Patent Cooperation Treaty
The Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) was created with the purpose of providing a simpler, cheaper way for inventors to gain patent protection in multiple countries. The PCT creates an international application for at least 30 months from the priority date. Prior to the expiration of the international application, applicants must enter National Stage in individual countries or regional offices. National laws can extend the 30 month time period, as seen with the EPO and several other countries which allow for 31 months. The PCT examines the application thereby making the prosecution procedure once National Stage is entered more uniform. The PCT application further provides the inventor with a significantly large time window in which to make a decision on where to foreign file, and delays the costs associated with National Stage filing and translation.

Foreign filing flow chart

Additional Resources:

World Intellectual Property Organization

PCT Countries

Time Limits for Entering National/Regional Phase under PCT Chapter I

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