Exporting to the United States – A Team Canada Inc Publication

4.8 Patents, trademarks and copyrights

Goods, of course, are not the only marketable things a company may possess. For many businesses, their intellectual property and/or proprietary technology can be their most valuable assets.

Because these assets are intangible, they can be difficult to protect and easy to misappropriate. Several legal methods have been developed to protect them. The major ones are:

Patents

Patents are granted for new inventions (such as processes, machines, manufacturing techniques or the composition of substances), or any new and useful improvement of an existing invention, and are intended to prevent people or businesses from making, using or selling them without the patent owner's permission. As defined by the United States Patent and Trademark Office, a patent is "the right to exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, or selling the invention in the United States or importing the invention into the United States".

A Canadian patent does ènotè protect your property in the U.S. To obtain this protection, you have to obtain a patent through the United States Patent and Trademark Office. A U.S. patent is good for 20 years.

In the U.S., industrial designs are considered "design patents" and are also handled by the Patent Office. Note that a U.S. patent gives no protection outside the U.S.

Trademarks

A trademark is defined by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office as protecting "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".

Copyrights

In the United States, according to the U.S. Copyright Office, copyright is "a form of protection provided... to the authors of original works of authorship, including literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, and certain other intellectual works." Copyright covers both published and unpublished works and means that you alone are allowed, among other things, to produce, reproduce, perform or publish the work, or to permit anyone else to do so. A U.S. copyright lasts for the life of the author plus 70 years.

You obtain copyright automatically when you create an original work. Registration of copyright is optional, but registration creates a presumption of validity that can be used to your advantage if your rights to your work are infringed. A work is protected in all countries that have signed the Berne Copyright Convention or the Universal Copyright Convention, and the U.S. has signed both. If you wish to register your copyright, you can do so through the U.S. Copyright Office.