Registration of software

Question

Hello,

What are the different ways to register Intellectual Property (Commercial Software)?

Thanks

Answer 1

If you are seriously worried about protecting your intellectual property it is time to develop a close relationship with a good lawyer. You could be talking about areas of copyright, trademark and patent law all at once.

Answer 2

There is no intellectual property, only copyright, patents, trademarks and trade secrets.

Laws vary by jurisdiction (obviously) but I know that our company (a big one) does the following (in the USA).

• Code is registered with the Library of Congress. This is not necessary for copyright protection but it makes it easier to prove you hold the copyright in a court of law (I think the legal term is 'a priori', meaning not based on existing art).
• Patents are filed with the USPTO and this is incredibly expensive, unless you go for a provisional patent (which offers less of a monopoly term) to "sound out the market".
• Trademarks, I have little knowledge of, simply because we don't have to deal with them on a day-to-day basis.
• I also have no knowledge of trade secrets simply because, in our industry, there's no reliable way to keep them secret and, once they're out, the law gives little protection (possibly restitution if the body that released them was under NDA).

For all but the biggest shops, I believe copyright would probably be the preferred method of protection.

Answer 3

With all due respect, please do not listen to Pax as (s)he is giving out incorrect information.

At least with respect to filing patent applications in the USPTO, there is a discount of approximately 50% for "small entities". In that case, the official filing fees for a patent application are about $550.00 (obviously, the cost of hiring an attorney to draft the application for you will vary, but expect to pay anwhere from $200/hour to $500 or more/hour). You can also try your hand at drafting your own application. Samples can be found on google.com/patents.

With respect to utility patents, this is the only way to go. The other choices (at least in the U.S.) are design patents and plant patents. Design patents cover ornamental designs (e.g., a water bottle design that does not convey any special utility but just "looks pretty"). Plant patents cover, e.g., new plant species that are created.

Pax may be referring to what are known as provisional and non-provisional applications. A provisional application is basically a place-holder that lasts a year, gives you a priority date, and allows you to save up funds to file a non-provisional application (which is what I referred to as a utility application above).

The term for all utility patents is 20 years from the date of filing the first non-provisional application (any provisionals you file before that do not count against the 20 years). However, the term only begins once the patent has issued. You can also get some adjustments based on delays in the USPTO.

So, you can protect your software by applying for a copyright on the code (see www.copyright.gov); you can also apply for a utility patent on the software (see www.uspto.gov) (however, there is a case floating out there, Bilski, that may be a huge problem); you can't apply for a trademark for your software. You can, however, apply for a trademark that will be used to identify the software to consumers. A trademark will protect the name you use on the software; it will not protect the software itself.

Hope this helps!