Welcome to the
Copyright Website

What is Copyright?

Here in the information age, virtually all intellectual creations can be protected by some form of intellectual property law. Intellectual property generally divides the universe intellectual creations into three domains:

• Copyrights
• Patents
• Trademarks

In a nutshell, copright protects expression, trademark protects names, and patents protect ideas.

Copyright protects creative expression that has been reduced to tangible form, such as a book, piece of recorded music, computer program, screenplay, painting, photograph, or motion picture.

Trademark protects brand names, literally marking items in trade. The idea behind trademark is to protect the consumer by giving them some confidence that items branded with a certain mark are authentic and come from where they purport to come from.

Patent protects innovation. While you can't copyright an idea, you can patent one. The idea behind patent is to encourage innovation by giving inventors a limited monopoly on their ideas.