Make Your Intellectual Property Valuable

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  Patent your invention to protect your rights to profit from it.scientist professor working in the laboratory image by Canakris from Fotolia.com
  
  Invent something new and useful. Patent law protects the creators of devices and processes to profit from their useful, novel, non-obvious inventions. Also, the invention must be described in such a way that it can actually be built; you cannot patent an idea. An invention that does not meet these criteria will not be granted a patent and thus will have little value as intellectual property.
  
  
• 2
  Protection against unauthorized copying promotes creativity.book image by Pali A from Fotolia.com
  
  Write something original. The United States Copyright Act protects "original works of authorship," including books, software, visual art, movies and sound recordings. Of course, just because a work can be copyrighted does not make it automatically valuable; value is in the mind (and pocketbook) of the consumer. But the law does protect you as the author from those who would profit from your work by copying it without permission. As with patent law, you cannot copyright an idea: your work must be "fixed in a tangible medium of expression." Note that this does not mean the work must be published to be protected from unauthorized copying.
  
  
• 3
  The more distinctive your trademark, the better.logo image by Markus Wegner-Parszyk from Fotolia.com
  
  Create and use a strong, distinctive trademark. If your business or nonprofit creates a logo, or any "word, name, symbol or device" intended to identify and distinguish your products or services from others, that identifying mark is entitled to trademark protection. The most valuable trademarks are those that the law describes as "strong" marks--in other words, those that are the most distinctive. The strongest trademark is one which is either "arbitrary" ("Apple" for computers), "fanciful" ("Xerox" for copiers) or "suggestive" ("Kleenex" for facial tissues) of the product with which it is associated.
  
  

Enforce Your Intellectual Property Rights

• 1). Pursue your application promptly and prosecute infringements against your patent rights in a timely and diligent fashion. Patent law is federal law: there are no state-level patent statutes. Thus, the most important thing you can do to protect your invention is to file for a patent with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). It is important that you file as early as possible, and to diligently prosecute your patent application so as not to incur undue delays and potentially lose out to your competitors. Also be warned: your competitors may attempt to block your patent application by filing an "interference." If you find out someone is infringing on your patented invention, consult legal counsel; your only option may be to sue the infringer in federal court.
  
  
• 2). Register your copyrightable material. You do not need to register your work of authorship with the United States Copyright Office for it to fall under copyright protection: the work you write is protected as soon as it is "fixed in a tangible medium of expression." However, if you want to sue another person for infringing on your copyright (i.e., copying it without permission) you must register the work with the Copyright Office and deposit a copy of the work with the Library of Congress first. Protection will extend to the date upon which the work was "fixed."
  
  
• 3). Police your trademark and keep it "strong." Even if you have a trademark that is so fanciful and distinctive no other competitor would dare try to steal it, there is a danger of your trademark becoming so commonly used by the public as to become "generic," and therefore unenforceable as trademarks. The most famous examples of trademarks in danger of becoming generic are Xerox and Kleenex. To prevent the loss of its trademark, Xerox has spent tremendous sums on advertising to promote its trademark, and has stringent internal regulations against employees using the word generically.