Copyright—protects
original works of authorship that are fixed in any tangible
medium of expression, including writings, musical compositions
or performances, paintings and sculptures, movies and photos,
sound recording, and computer programs.
Some copyright rights exist from the time of creation of
the work; greater rights are acquired by applying copyright
notice on the work and by registering the work with the
Copyright Office.
Trademark—a
name or design used in conjunction with a product that indicates
the source or maker, for example, “Kodak” used
in conjunction with cameras. A Servicemark — a name
or design used in conjunction with a service, for example,
“Photomat” in conjunction with film developing.
Trademark rights are largely based on "common law"
with the common law rule generally being that the first
to use a mark in commerce in conjunction with a good or
service in a geographical market area can prevent later
use by others of confusingly similar marks on similar products
or services in the same geographical market area. There
are exceptions to the general rule. For example, some marks
are so well known and associated with a single company (e.g.
Xerox, or Pepsi) that another could not use the mark on
even un-related products.
Also, the degree of protection afforded
to a Mark varies. Marks "merely descriptive" of
the services (e.g. "SUPER CLEAN LAUNDRY") receive
little or no protection while marks that are "coined"
(e.g. "APPLE" for computers) can get relatively
strong protection.
Federal registration of a mark expands the geographic market
area to the entire nation, For federal registration, there
must be use of the mark in interstate or international commerce.
Beware: obtaining
a fictitious business name or corporate name does not assure
that that the name can be used publicly. It is highly recommended
to do a trademark search before naming a business or product.
