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Protect Intellectual Property
Look around your business and determine if any of your works is eligible for protection. Obvious ones are logos and business names. which should already be completed, if you followed the steps.
Some examples of intellectual property you make yourself are graphics, articles, website design, musical works, recordings, photography, drawings, poems and plays.
Your business attorney can advise you on what exactly constitutes intellectual property and how to legally protect it.
Different types of intellectual property are protected by different means.
- In the U.S., patents may be available to any person who "invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof." Patent protection must be sought by application with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
- Trademarks protect words, names, symbols, sounds, or colors that distinguish goods and services from those manufactured or sold by others and to indicate the source of the goods. Registration with the USPTO is not required, but does provide certain advantages.
- Copyrights protect original works of authorship, including literary, dramatic, musical, artistic and certain other works, both published and unpublished. In the United States, the U.S. Copyright Office handles copyright registration that, although not required for protection, does confer advantages.
Excerpt from http://www.stopfakes.gov/sf_how.asp