Wednesday, February 5, 2014

What Is Intellectual Property?

By Maryl Joop


There was a conflict between NBC and Conan O'Brien in 2010 that ended in the host of the Tonight Show leaving, being replaced with former host Jay Leno. Though NBC and Leno were both highly criticized for essentially forcing O'Brien to leave the network it did happen, and had negative consequences for O'Brien's future.

This consequence was that any idea or product that had been written by him or his writers for his show was under patent as a property of NBC, not Conan O'Brien. Therefore, once he left the network, he would be under contract and law to never use the same jokes again, despite the fact that he wrote them.

When we are talking about trademarks, they are usually a word, phrase, or symbol that identifies the source of goods or services This is for any type of creative stuff. When we are talking about songs, music, films, writing, computer software, they all fall under copyright. Basically anything that is fixed in a tangible medium.

Because of this experience, it has become more obvious to some that they need to protect their intellectual property so it's not taken away from them like it was from Conan O'Brien. In order to protect your property, you have to know exactly what intellectual property (IP) entails.

IP includes anything that are inventions, discoveries, processes, unique materials, copyrightable works, original data, creative works (such as Conan's jokes), models, machines, devices, apparatus, instrumentation, circuits, computer programs and visualizations, biological materials, chemicals, other compositions of matter, plans, and records of research.

Once you have found a few different options, you should vet them all carefully. This means that you should have a consultation with these lawyers to ask them questions and find out if they are a good fit. Because you may be working with your lawyer for an extended period of time, it is important that you find one you can feel comfortable with.

If you are ever in a circumstance where you are being sued for your intellectual property or if you want to sue for misuse of your intellectual property you can contact these attorneys to help you as well. There is no reason why you should have to fight for that yourself, especially if you have never had experience with it before. There are experts in Utah that have to deal with these sorts of situations every day.

The law has become more and more complicated as mediums for sharing ideas have changed. For instance the internet has opened the doors for many to copy and infringe on other people's ideas. Not only is it important to protect your property as a contributor of new ideas to society, but it is also important to fight back when necessary.

Keep yourself aware of all the things you may create that can be taken away from you and make the necessary precautions so you don't end up losing them like Conan O'Brien did.




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