What Is a Copyright?

The copyright protects the form of expression rather than the subject matter of what is being expressed.  For example, a written description of a machine could be copyrighted, but this would not protect the device or machine itself.  It would only prevent others from copying the description you wrote about the machine or device; it would not prevent others from making, using or selling the device or writing a similar description of the machine or device.  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 commerce in conjunction with goods to signify the source of the goods and to distinguish the goodwill and character behind the source. A servicemark is the same as a trademark except that it signifies the source of a service rather than a good or product. A company can use both a design trademark and a trade name to distinguish itself in commerce.  For example, the McDonald’s name itself is a trade name and the gold arches represent a trademark. 

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.

What Is a Patent?

A patent protects an inventor’s idea.  There are various types of patents such as design patents, utility patents, and even plant patents.  Patents can protect a device, machine, composition, method or design.  The right conferred by the patent grant is, "the right to exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, or selling" the invention covered by the patent in the United States or "importing" the innovation into the US . What is granted is not the right to make, use, offer for sale, sell or import, but the right to exclude others from doing so.

What is the Term of a Patent?

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.

(Excerpted with modifications from General Information Concerning Patents, U.S. Patent and Trademark Office website)