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 Endeavors
thrive because of their intellectual
property
Due
to Treaties enacted by many of the World's
governments, creative intellectual property owners
often find the privileges and monopolies flowing
from their patents, trademarks and copyrights to be
global in scope.
In
today's far reaching marketplace, only the most
resourceful people have any hope of surviving the
assault of their cheapest cutthroat competitors.
With this in mind, like many of their larger
Fortune 500® counterparts, most creative
companies determine intellectual property is their
most valuable asset. Savvy creative people
comprehend the importance of excluding their
competitors from competing directly against their
product or service. Intellectual property rights
are essential in the legal exclusion of
competition. In the end, most creative upstarts
find their intellectual property assets are the
lifeblood which can sustain them against the
onslaught of larger and better financed rivals.
History is replete with numerous examples of this
reality. At the same time, recent reports
demonstrate Wall Street investors reward creative
entrepreneurs, who are well-endowed with valuable
intellectual property holdings.
What kind of property is sufficiently
creative to be protected by intellectual property
rights?
The
following Counseling The Creative® criterion
generates a deductive appraisal of the potential
value of owning patents, trademarks and
copyrights.
Patent Rights are excellent assets
Let
us begin with a simple block shape.
Some
would call it a box, others a cube,
while still others would label it a block. Since
cubes have been around for millennia, many would
argue that it impossible to patent a cube. However,
in the United States of America, for a utility
patent, the patentability of the invention is
not measured against how long something has
existed. Instead, the dual tests of novelty and
non-obviousness to those skilled in the art are the
standards for patentability. A utility
patent must also have a function while a
design patent is limited to its ornamental
design.
Because
this cube is the corner stone of our intellectual
property assets, we will label it a block. In other
words, it is our building block. And whether or not
a building block is patentable depends upon what is
being built. Thus, if we cut a hole in bottom of
our block, we have just invented a new type of hat.
Because US Patent Office records reveal no one else
has ever patented a block hat or any similar
hat-cap-type structure, then it is possible to
obtain a utility patent for the block
hat.
Trademark Rights
If
we take the patented block hat that functions to
protect some heads
and attach a Block Top™ label to it, we have
created a trademark. Since the records of
the Trademark Office reveal no other person owns
the typed term Block Top for hats, the creative
applicant can procure a Federal Registration of
Block Top® for hats. Because the Block Top®
label is attached to our hats, anyone buying the
hats knows he has purchased the genuine, the
original and the patented Block Top® hat. In
doing this, the creative person makes his mark on
commerce.
Design Paten t
When
a design, such as a Mona Lisa, is added to the
trademarked and patented Block Top® hat an
ornamental design is created. Such a design can be
the subject of a design patent.
Copyrights are valuable intellectual
property
By
attaching advertising messages to the design
patented, utility patented and
trademarked block hat and filing an
application for registration of copyright, we can
obtain a copyright for the advertising
message affixed to the Block Top®.
Methods of doing business are now subject
matter for United States utility patents.
A
creative entrepreneur could contract with
advertisers to promote their products or services
at sporting events. Then, the entrepreneur could
hire a host of people to walk about a soccer or
football stadium during games while wearing the
Block Top® hat with the copyrighted
advertisement attached. In conducting this
business, the creative entrepreneur has invented a
"Method of doing business at sporting events" that
can be the subject of a United States utility
patent. 
This
reasoning criteria demonstrates it is possible to
obtain intellectual property rights, in all
classifications, to seemingly simple ideas, by
following the procedures required by the Law of the
United States of America.
Intellectual property rights are not for
everyone
Even
in today's worldwide marketplace, there are those
rare occasions, when the ambit of exclusionary
protection is simply too limited to justify the
expense of procuring intellectual property rights.
In short, the exclusionary rights are so narrow in
scope that any resultant monopoly is useless
against competitors.
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