Copyright vs. Trademark vs. Patent
I don’t know how many of you have been following the discussion that’s been raging on my AdSense Resurrected review post (all 150 of them so far!), but I’d like to touch on a couple of things that have been mentioned by different people. Specifically, I want to talk about the differences between copyrights, trademarks, and patents. All three offer legal protection for intellectual property, but they’re very different from each other. Disclaimer: I’m not a lawyer, this is meant to provide general information only.
Copyright
Copyright is essentially the legal right of the creator of a protected work (a book, a manuscript, an audio recording, a video, etc.) to determine what happens to that work. Only the copyright holder has the right to make copies of the work, to sell it, to rent it, to make derivative works, etc. These rights can be given to others, either in part or in whole. It’s not unusual, for example, for a book publisher to acquire the copyright to a manuscript as a condition of publishing the book. Determining who exactly is the copyright holder isn’t always easy. Normally, it’s the person (or persons) who created the work, but if those persons are employed by an organization and did the work on the organization’s behalf, the organization usually holds the copyright. But sometimes these things end up in court.
Copyright lasts for a fixed period, usually based on the lifetime of the creator(s) plus a fixed amount, or just a fixed length of time in the case of non-person copyright holders. That said, there’s been a trend in certain countries (notably the United States — see, for example, the Sonny Bono Term Extension Act) to extend the duration of copyrights. Works that are no longer protected by copyright (or are not afforded copyright protection in the first place) are said to have fallen into the “public domain”. Public domain works can be used by anyone and everyone for any purpose whatsoever. Determining if a work is in the public domain, however, is non-trivial.
Perhaps the most important thing to understand about copyright is that it protects the original expression of ideas, not the ideas themselves. The authors of AdSense Resurrected have threatened legal action against anyone who uses their ideas because those ideas are protected by copyright. In fact, that’s not true: the book itself is protected by copyright, but the underlying ideas aren’t. Look at all those books on the Law of Attraction. Aren’t they all rehashing the same basic idea? Yes, but they’re all afforded individual copyright protection because they’re original expressions of that idea. But someone else can come along and publish another book on the same topic and it will also be afforded those same protections.
Trademark
A trademark is a name or design that distinguishes the goods or services of a business from those of its competitors. Trademarks can’t be used without permission and afford the holders legal protection against misuse and deceptive practices by others. The scope of a trademark can be very narrow, however, and only rarely grants the holder exclusive use to the term or design being protected. See All About Trademarks for all the nitty gritty details.
The authors of AdSense Resurrected objected to Manuel Viloria’s offer of “AdSense Resurrected Coaching” because it infringed on their “AdSense Resurrected” trademark. They are correct in that Manuel should have called it something like “Coaching for Buyers of the AdSense Resurrected Book” or something like that. (Of course, “AdSense Resurrected” is itself using Google’s “AdSense” trademark and I doubt they received permission for that… Google doesn’t seem to police use of the “AdSense” trademark too stringently, at least not currently. Good for us who write about it!)
Patent
A patent protects an idea, unlike copyright. The patent holder has the exclusive right to use the ideas embodied in a patent while the patent is in effect. It’s strong protection, but it’s also very hard to get a patent. Not only must the idea be useful and non-obvious, you must file complex legal documents in order to obtain a patent. You can do it yourself, but usually you do it the help of a patent attorney. Patents are very contentious and not something most people worry about or deal with, although many of the things you take for granted on the Internet are patented — see the GIF image format for example.
As far as I know, there’s nothing about AdSense Resurrected that is patentable. Just thought I’d throw that in for completeness 
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That’s the end of today’s legal lesson. You can find out more about copyright, trademark and patent protection from various sources on the Web. If you’re in the United States, consult the United States Patent and Trademark Office for more information. In Canada, the Canadian Intellectual Property Office is the place to start. In the United Kingdom, visit the United Kingdom Intellectual Property Office. In Australia, the IP Australia. In New Zealand, the Intellectual Property Office of New Zealand. In Singapore, the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore. In… well, you get the picture. Intellectual property laws vary by country, so it’s best to consult the IP office/department for your country to get all the details.
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Eric Giguere is the author of several printed books and knows a thing or two about content monetization. Subscribe to his AdSense blog today and never miss any of his insightful comments. And the not-so-insightful ones, for that matter.
Comments
One Response to “Copyright vs. Trademark vs. Patent”
Wow, I’m the first one to comment today. Anyway, my post is about my Seven Month Anniversary of going vegan.
Lane of VeganBits.com