Many California companies apply for copyrights or trademarks as part of their business branding strategy. Doing so can help establish the company's name and reputation in the marketplace. You can register a copyright or trademark to protect your creative works and to minimize the chances of someone unlawfully representing your organization.
How long do intellectual property rights last?
There are many different options that you can choose from when it comes to protecting your creative works. There are copyrights, trademarks, patents and trade secrets. You may sue anyone who uses any of these without your permission. Your intellectual property rights don't remain in effect forever. You should familiarize yourself with how long they do, though.
Engineer who stole tech for Uber fined $179 million
Two tech giants have been embroiled in controversy for several years over the intellectual property that one claims the other stole. Now, that controversy seems to be settled with a court judgment, a series of indictments and a massive fine.
Novel plagiarism often includes minor changes
Plagiarism of novels is fairly common, especially in the age of self-publishing. Authors do not have to go through the normal channels. They can simply upload files to Amazon and sell them online. Unfortunately, as much as this has opened doors for a lot of writers, it also means that people sometimes steal intellectual property in an effort to sell it for as long as they can before they get caught.
Innovation can never stop
The key to business success, at least prolonged success, is innovation. It can never stop. No matter how good a company's first or most popular product is, they have to keep striving to come up with new ideas that change the market yet again.
Why your branding matters
At the heart of many intellectual property disputes is this issue: The infringement really damages the company's brand. It may do this by offering an inferior product, for instance, or by tricking people into buying a product that the company doesn't make. That either makes the brand appear worse to the public, or it steals sales directly from the company. Either way, the brand is impacted.
The wide range of intellectual property
Intellectual property theft is a serious issue that can cost you and your company millions of dollars. Part of the problem is that it can take on a wide range of forms, meaning you must know your rights and remain constantly vigilant to see if anyone violates them -- and the law.
