A copyright protects original works that fall under the categories of literature, dramatic, musical, artistic, and intellectual.

These works may be published or unpublished, and the Copyright Act of 1976 gives the owner exclusive rights to
reproduce his or her work in any medium. A copyright protects a form of expression, but not the subject matter of the
work. For example, if someone wrote an article about a new car on the market, the text would be copyrighted, preventing
someone else from using that particular material. A copyright does not prevent others from writing their own original
article about this new car, however, or from using or making the car themselves.

A trademark is used to protect a word, symbol, device, or name that is used for the purpose of trading goods. The
trademark indicates the source of goods and distinguishes them from the goods of others. A trademark may also be used to
prevent others from using a mark that might be confused with another; trademarks, however, do not prevent other people
or businesses from producing the same product or services under a different mark.

In the US, trademarks can be registered with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). The filing fee is
more substantial than it is for a copyright, and it usually takes a longer time to obtain registration, since the Patent and
Trademark Office conducts a substantive review of any potentially conflicting marks, or marks that might be confused
with others.

Related topics
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A patent for an invention grants a property right to the inventor that will prevent anyone else from making, using, or
selling an invention. A patent lasts for a limited amount of time, usually 20 years from the date the application was filed,
and is only effective in the country in which it was filed. The application for a patent must include a detailed description of
how the invention works. Since a patent is considered "property," it may be bought, sold, mortgaged, or licensed by the
owner.
COPYRIGHT vs. TRADEMARK vs. PATENT

Some people confuse patents, copyrights, and trademarks. Although there may be some
similarities among these kinds of intellectual property protection, they are different and
serve different purposes.

What Is a Copyright?

Copyright is a form of protection provided to the authors of "original works of authorship"

including literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, and certain other intellectual works, both
published and unpublished. The 1976 Copyright Act generally gives the owner of copyright
the exclusive right to reproduce the copyrighted work, to prepare derivative works, to
distribute copies or phonorecords of the copyrighted work, to perform the copyrighted work
publicly, or to display the copyrighted work publicly.

The copyright protects the form of expression rather than the subject matter of the writing.
For example, a description of a machine could be copyrighted, but this would only prevent
others from copying the description; it would not prevent others from writing a description
of their own or from making and using the machine. Copyrights are registered by the
Copyright Office of the Library of Congress.

What Is a Trademark or Servicemark?

A trademark is a word, name, symbol or device which is used in trade with goods to indicate
the source of the goods and to distinguish them from the goods of others. A servicemark is
the same as a trademark except that it identifies and distinguishes the source of a service
rather than a product. The terms "trademark" and "mark" are commonly used to refer to
both trademarks and servicemarks.

Trademark rights may be used to prevent others from using a confusingly similar mark, but
not to prevent others from making the same goods or from selling the same goods or
services under a clearly different mark. Trademarks which are used in interstate or foreign
commerce may be registered with the Patent and Trademark Office. The registration
procedure for trademarks and general information concerning trademarks is described in a
separate pamphlet entitled "Basic Facts about Trademarks".

What Is a Patent?

A patent for an invention is the grant of a property right to the inventor, issued by the
Patent and Trademark Office. The term of a new patent is 20 years from the date on which
the application for the patent was filed in the United States or, in special cases, from the
date an earlier related application was filed, subject to the payment of maintenance fees.
US patent grants are effective only within the US, US territories, and US possessions.

The right conferred by the patent grant is, in the language of the statute and of the grant
itself, "the right to exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, or selling" the
invention in the United States or "importing" the invention into the United States. What is
granted is not the right to make, use, offer for sale, sell or import, but the right to exclude
others from making, using, offering for sale, selling or importing the invention.

(Excerpted from General Information Concerning Patents, U.S. Patent and Trademark Office
website)
Some additional differences between a copyright and a trademark are as follows:

1.   The purpose of a copyright is to protect works of authorship as fixed in a tangible form

of expression. Thus, copyright covers: a) works of art (2 or 3 dimensional), b) photos,
pictures, graphic designs, drawings and other forms of images; c) songs, music and sound
recordings of all kinds; d) books, manuscripts, publications and other written works; and e)
plays, movies, shows, and other performance arts.

2.   The purpose of a trademark is to protect words, phrases and logos used in federally
regulated commerce to identify the source of goods and/or services.

3.   There may be occasions when both copyright and trademark protection are desired with
respect to the same business endeavor. For example, a marketing campaign for a new
product may introduce a new slogan for use with the product, which also appears in
advertisements for the product. However, copyright and trademark protection will cover
different things. The advertisement's text and graphics, as published in a particular vehicle,
will be covered by copyright - but this will not protect the slogan as such. The slogan may
be protected by trademark law, but this will not cover the rest of the advertisement. If you
want both forms of protection, you will have to perform both types of registration.

4.   If you are interested in protecting a title, slogan, or other short word phrase, generally
you want a trademark. Copyright law does not protect a bare phrase, slogan, or trade
name.

5.   Whether an image should be protected by trademark or copyright law depends on

whether its use is intended to identify the source of goods or services. If an image is used
temporarily in an ad campaign, it generally is not the type of thing intended to be protected
as a logo.

6.   The registration prcesses of copyright and trademark are entirely different. For
copyright, the filing fee is small, the time to obtain registration is relatively short, and
examination by the Copyright Office is limited to ensuring that the registration application is
properly completed and suitable copies are attached. For trademark, the filing fee is more
substantial, the time to obtain registration is much longer, and examination by the
Trademark Office includes a substantive review of potentially conflicting marks which are
found to be confusingly similar. While copyright registration is primarily an administrative
process, trademark registration is very much an adversarial process.

7.   Copyright law provides for compulsory licensing and royalty payments - there is no
analogous concept in trademark law. Plus, the tests and definition of infringement are
considerably different under copyright law and trademark law.
There are three basic ways to protect yourself from someone stealing inventions and intellectual
property that belong to you or your business: copyrights, patents, and trademarks.

These protections are not interchangeable, and each one covers a different kind of property. But
businesses often use a combination of copyrights, patents, and trademarks to ensure their rights are
fully protected.

Copyrights

A copyright protects certain “forms of expression.” This includes works of art and written materials. It
does not include a subject or topic, only what you "express" about something. You can formally
register a copyright, but you may also have automatic protection of your rights even without
registering something you created.

Patents

A patent protects your rights to an invention. Patenting is a legal process that is done by submitting a
formal patent application to the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Fees vary depending upon
what you are trying to patent.

Trademarks

Trademarks are used to identify logos, designs, jingles, slogans, and a word or series of words, or
other unique and specific things that represent or relate to your company, a product, or service. A
trademark must be registered with the Patent and Trademark Office (in the United States) and costs
about several hundred dollars.
What are the differences between a patent, trademark and a copyright?  Using a Nike® sneaker as an example will
help illustrate some of the differences.

When shopping for sneakers, you may prefer one brand over another.  You go to the store and ask for Nike®
sneakers.  That is the trade name under which this particular brand of sneakers is sold under.  The company also
happens to be called Nike®, but that is coincidental, they could be called Big Sneaker Company and sell sneakers
under the trade name Nike® (for  example, Sears sells various items under the trademark "Craftsman" ®). 

Nike® has also obtained several intellectual property patents on inventions contained in its sneakers.  For example,
the Nike® AIR system patented a pressurized gas contained in polyurethane.  A patent grants the right to anyone
who invents any new and useful process, machine, article of manufacture or composition of matter.  In addition, you
can obtain a patent for any improvement upon an existing process, machine, etc.

Inside the sneaker box, Nike® has written a story explaining the history of Nike® and how their sneakers are the best
sneakers in the world.  Nike®  would own a copyright right to this story.

The above example demonstrates that trademark rights are used to help consumers and the public identify a
particular brand or source of a product; a patent is for inventions; and an intellectual copyright is for a creative
expression.

Patents
In the United States, if you are the owner of a patent that gives you the right to exclude others from making, using,
selling, offering for sale, or importing the patented invention for 20 years from the filing date (formerly 17 years from
the date the patent was issued).  As the owner of the patent you have patent rights and do not have to actually use or
make your invention, you still have the right to exclude others from making and using your patented invention.

You are given this limited monopoly right, because your patent is made available to the public.  The public and other
inventors can determine how your invention works.  This encourages innovation as other inventors, knowing how
your patented invention works, can apply your invention to a "new and improved" invention.

In the United States, patent applications are submitted to the Patent and Trademark Office (the PTO).  The PTO
determines if your application is eligible for patentability.  As the PTO is making this determination it will probably
request further information from the applicant or issue what is called an “Office Action.”  An Office Action informs the
applicant of some problem with the application that must be corrected.  This is where a patent attorney earns his/her
money.  Responding to Office Actions is very complicated and if not done correctly can jeopardize your patent
application.

Patents and trademarks are not related, you can have one without the other.  There are thousands of products that
are sold under a trademarked name which have no patent.  Similarly, there are thousands of patents which are sold
or used without the patented invention having a trademark.

Trademarks
A trademark (or a "mark") can be more than just a simple name, it can also be a phrase (McDonald’s "I’m Loving it"),
logo or symbol (McDonald’s double arches), design (the Nike® "swoosh"), image, colors (the UPS Brown and John
Deere Green), or any combination of these items.

The purpose of registering a trademark is to protect consumers from being confused about the goods and services
they buy.  For example, if I started to sell socks using the name Niike, that may confuse the public into thinking that
my socks are made by the real Nike® or somehow related to the real Nike®.  Although, socks are not sneakers, they
are related enough to possibly cause confusion in the eyes of the consumer.

In comparison, if instead of sneakers, I decided to sell hamburgers under the name Niike, consumers may not believe
that the company that sells sneakers (Nike®) is also selling hamburgers.  Therefore, I may be able to get a trademark
for a product called Niike that only sells hamburgers, but, I would not be able to get a trademark for a product called
Niike that sells socks (or sneakers).
You can also obtain a trademark for names used to provide a service.  For example H&R Block provides various
services to consumers.  Yet, for the most part, H&R Block does not sell any goods.  H&R Block is a trademarked
name for services related to providing tax and accounting services.

Copyrights
You may believe that copyrights are limited to books, music and movies.  However, you can obtain a copyright on an
article in a magazine, a piece of art, photographs, computer software, choreography and architecture.  To obtain a
copyright, it has to exist in some tangible form, which means that it has to be on paper, on film, in a computer’s
memory, or the like.  In the copyright world the "thing" you are trying to copyright is often called your "work".  The
second requirement is that your work has to be creative, at least in some respects.

What this means is that if you simply write "2 + 2 = 4", that is a fact and there is no creative idea in the presentation of
this fact.  Therefore, you could not obtain a copyright on this simple sentence.  However, if you explain why two plus
two equals four and explain it in such a way that is "creative", you could obtain a copyright on that explanation.  This
is why a "math" book could have a copyright.

Note, you can not obtain a copyright on an idea.  For example, your idea could be to tell a story about President
Obama and how he became president.  You could take your idea and write a book, produce a movie, or even sing a
song with this idea.  All the ways you “express” your idea can be copyrighted.  However, another person could come
along, with the same idea about President Obama and how he became president.  As long as that other person did
not copy your book, movie, or song and came up with a different way to present his book, movie, or song, then his
different expression could also be copyrighted.

Obtaining a copyright is fairly simple.  However, if someone is using your copyrighted material without your
permission (called copyright infringement), then that is a matter that is usually best left for an attorney.

The owner of a copyright has the right to control how the work is reproduced, distributed, adapted, displayed and
performed.  If you obtain copyright registration, you own this right for their lifetime plus 70 years after their death (after
their death, the estate owns the right). 

Patents vs. Copyrights vs. Trademarks

To Summarize:

Trademark: A trade name for a product or a service

Patent: An invention

Copyright: A creative expression of an idea (but not the idea itself)