Intellectual Property Law

Intellectual Property law deals with laws to protect and enforce rights of the creators and owners of
inventions, writing, music, designs and other works, known as the "intellectual property." There are
several areas of intellectual property including copyright, trademarks, patents, and trade secrets.

Copyright law protects the rights of creators in their works in fine arts, publishing, entertainment,
and computer software. The laws protect the owner of the work if others copy, present, or display the
owners work without permission.

Trademark law protects a word, phrase, symbol or design that is used by an entity to identify its
product or service. Examples are Dunkin Donuts orange and pink sausage style lettering, Apple’s apple
logo, and Adidas’ three stripes. Trademark owners can prevent others from using their marks, or marks
which are confusingly similar so that consumers would not be able to identify the source. Federal and
state laws govern trademarks but the Lanham Act is the primary source of trademark protection.
These laws protect against infringement and dilution. Rights in trademarks are gained by being the
first to use a trademark in commerce or being the first to register the mark with the United States
Patent and Trademark Office.

The patent gives the patent owner the right to exclude others from making, using, selling, or importing
the invention. The patent holder is the only one who may make, use, or sell the invention. Others may do
so only with the authorization of the patent holder. If a patent is infringed, the patent holder may sue in
the appropriate Federal court. The patent holder may ask the court for an injunction to prevent the
continued infringement and may also ask the court for an award of damages.

Trade secrets are business practices, formulas, designs or processes used in a business, designed
specifically to provide a competitive advantage to a business. These trade secrets would not be
otherwise known to an “outsider” of the business. An example of this is the formula for Coca Cola. Trade
secrets are protected without registration and appropriate steps should be taken by the owner to
maintain confidentiality.

Historical Development

The history of copyright law is largely a history of Western development of copyright law. In many
Eastern nations, there was no need of copyright because the government controlled all printing until the
late 1800s. In addition, there was a general lack of interest in economic reward for literary works.
The history of Western copyright law is largely that of England and the United States. From the
printing of the Gutenberg Bible in 1456 to the Statute of Anne in 1710, there were no laws protecting
any rights of authors. In fact, as in other European and Eastern nations, early laws regarding printing in
England were most often passed by the crown to control access to printing and to control its content.
Only those with licenses from the crown could print. If they printed works that displeased the crown,
then they found their licenses terminated and were then subject to punishment. By 1700, the licensing
scheme had fallen into disarray and the printers, or “stationers” as they were known, found that the
abundance of printing presses was leading to increased piracy. They pleaded the case of authors and
their own predicament to convince the parliament to pass the Statute of Anne, the first copyright law.
The law provided that the rights belonged to authors and to printers and booksellers that had received
the right to print from the authors, thus recognizing the essentially commercial nature of the printing
industry. Whereas the authors created the works, it was the printers that were able to commercially
exploit the works. For the printers to succeed, they had to be protected from unauthorized
reproductions appearing the moment they released their first editions to the public.
This established a pattern for the expansion of copyright law. As new kinds of works were invented or
became commercially viable, the interested parties lobbied their governments for protection. The
more commercially important, the more likely the work or right was to be protected.
For nearly 200 years after the Statute of Anne, most nations protected only works of their own
citizens. Works from neighboring nations were often pirated at will, and the copyright owners had no
recourse. In 1886, the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works marked
the first significant agreement among a group of nations that they should protect copyrights across
borders. Even as late as the 1950s, the United States did not protect rights in works from foreign
nationals unless there was a specific trade treaty with that nation or unless the nation was from the
Western Hemisphere and was a member of the only significant multinational copyright treaty the United
States had signed, the Buenos Aires Convention in 1910. Only when the United States joined the
Universal Copyright Convention (UCC) in 1955 did Congress abandon the requirement that all English-
language versions of books being sold in the United States be printed in the United States.

HANDOUT

Copyright law - კანონი საავტორო უფლების შესახებ

Trademark = a special name, sign, or word that is marked on a product to show that it is made by a
particular company, that cannot be used by any other company; სავაჭრო ნიშანი
Fine arts = forms of art, especially paintings or sculpture, that are produced and admired for
their beauty and high quality; ნატიფი ხელოვნება # applied art
Entity = an organization or a business that has its own separate legal and financial existence;
ორგანიზაცია, ბიზნესი, დაწესებულება
The Lanham Act = a federal trademark law passed by President Harry S. Truman in July 1946. It
governs and regulates the use of commercial trademarks and service marks and
defines trademark infringement (=violation) prohibitions and penalties.
Infringement = an action that breaks a rule, law, etc. v. to infringe
Dilution = the process or action of making something less strong or valuable; გაუფასურება v. to dilute
Injunction - სასამართლო აკრძალვა
Award of damages = monetary compensation to the harmed party
Competitive advantage – კონკურენტული უპირატსობა
The Statute of Anne = an act of the Parliament of Great Britain passed in 1710. It recognized that
authors should be the primary beneficiaries of copyright law and established
the idea that such copyrights should have only limited duration (then set at 28
years), after which works would pass into the public domain (= unprotected
by intellectual property law, free for anyone to use, adapt, reproduce, or
distribute for commercial and noncommercial purposes)
The crown = the government of a country that is officially ruled by a king or queen
To terminate - შეწყვეტა
Disarray = a lack of order, a messy or confused condition, showing a lack of organization; არეულობა,
არაორგანიზებულა
Abundance - სიუხვე v. to abound
Piracy = the crime of illegally copying and selling books, tapes, videos, computer programs etc; საავტორო,
გამომცემლის უფლების დარღვევა
To plead - გასაჩივრება
Predicament = a difficult or unpleasant situation in which you do not know what to do; რთული სიტუაცია
Reproduction = a copy of a work of art
Commercially viable = commercially successful
To lobby = to try to persuade the government or someone with political power that a law or situation
should be changed
At will = whenever you want and in whatever way you want
Recourse = help, usually in the form of an official system or process, for someone in a difficult situation
The Berne Convention = an international assembly held in 1886 in the Swiss city of Bern by ten European
countries with the goal to agree on a set of legal principles for the protection of
original work.
Trade treaty - სავაჭრო ხელშეკრულება
To abandon = to stop doing something because there are too many problems and it is impossible to
continue n. abandonment