The creation of human intelligence is a piece of intellectual property. It encompasses both industrial and copyright rights—the law of intellectual property assists in creating new intellectual goods. Information and intellectual products come with a period of time limit for retaining their properties. Understanding intellectual property and intellectual property valuation will help you secure your idea.
1. Patents
The purpose of patents is to protect innovative ideas or processes and any newly engineered plant species. It is patents that constitute intellectual property that allows the owner to exclude others for a period of time from making, selling, using, and importing an invention. It is accomplished through patents issued by the Patents & Trademark Office. An inventor has no exclusive rights until a patent is issue.
Every country has its patent-issuing process. Patents cannot, therefore, be enforced internationally. Types of patents include:
- Utility patents cover an invention’s function.
- Design patents cover an invention’s appearance.
- Plant patents cover innovations of new plants.
While doing intellectual property valuation, any approach can perform the patent valuation. The value of a patent will be the current value of cash flow or cost savings that it will provide.
2. Trademarks
As the name suggests, a trademark is associated with a product or service. The trademark identifies the product or source of the product. If a trademark is made up of words, it is called a wordmark. A trademark may include more than just the name, such as colors, sounds, or smells. A trademark is usually a wordmark, a slogan, or a logo. First, a new invention needs to protect with a wordmark and other trademarks. Trademark registration is not mandatory, but you gain national rights to your trademark, and no one else can obtain it from the Patent & Trademark Office. An intellectual property valuation exercise mainly determines the value of the intellectual property or its combination.
3. Copyright
The copyright is use to protect images, words, product packaging, labels, and the product itself. Copyright registrations for these kinds of intellectual property are not expensive, and anyone infringing on them is require by law to pay attorney fees.
Your attorney fees, which are more expensive than the damages you receive from someone copying your words and images, would be your responsibility if you did not register copyright. Video, photos, articles, and software are all copyrighted works. Software is a functional item, but because its pieces of code are creatively arrange, it can be protect by copyright.
4. Trade Secret
A piece of information that is not public and is reasonably ascertainable is a trade secret. Trade secrets give their owners a competitive advantage. To be effective, a trade secret must keep confidential. The information must not be disclose, and policies and practices must restrict its access.
The Coca-Cola Company used a trade secret to create Coca-Cola. Coca-Cola protects its formula to prevent others from copying it.
Intellectual property valuation, whether in the form of a trademark, patent, or copyrighted work, allows the monetary value of that particular piece of property to be determine.
How is intellectual property valued?
There are three methods of intellectual property valuation: cost-based, market–based, and income-based valuations. The cost-based valuation considers how much it costs to create the asset historically and how much it would cost to recreate it. All types of the intellectual property significantly contribute to any national and state economy. The majority of industries depend on the adequate enforcement of their patents, trademarks, and copyrights. Consumers, too, use intellectual property to ensure they buy safe and guaranteed products.
