The first and foremost difference is that the patents protect rights over a concrete or conceptual invention, while the copyrights protect documents or images created by the author. On the contrary, trademark does not always need to be innovative, as it can include any word or logo that can identify a product.
Secondly, patents have strictly defined liabilities, which provide the maximum protection against any sort of infringement. In other words, regardless the fact that the infringer was or was not aware that he was violating the patent, he will be considered responsible for the same. Thus patents offer greater protection against infringement, on the other hand copyright and trademarks provide for reasonable use and other exceptions.
A patent is generally awarded for a span of 20 years, after which it passes into the public domain. Whereas, trademarks can continue for an infinite time period while copyrights are valid for 60-70 years from the date the work was created. Further, patents can safeguard your intellectual property interests in a very comprehensive manner. Put simply, a copyright safeguards the mere expression of ideas, whereas patents can safeguard the underlying processes and ideas behind the creation as well.
Lastly, since these 3 kinds of IPR offer different levels of safety for different things, the processes for submitting an application for them are also significantly different from each other. For instance, the application for a patent requires detailed description of the invention, which is not required in case of copyrights or trademarks. But, a copyright usually requires a replica of the original creation, while a trademark needs a prior check for existing marks in the market that could lead to confusion.
No comments:
Post a Comment