Some students have asked me how to protect their idea and their trade name.

Here are some links:

Trademark protects titles, words, names, symbols, logos and designs that are used to identify a business’ goods (trademarks) or services (service marks) that are used in commerce.

For Trademarks, visit www.uspto.gov.

Patents are used to protect inventions

For Patents, you can also visit www.uspto.gov. However, Google has a GREAT site to allow you to search through patents. Great resource. Here is the link: http://www.google.com/patents

Here is an example of a patent (the toothbrush in 1941). Click here.

What about copyrights?

Copyright protects original artistic, literary, dramatic, musical and other intellectual property works, including compilations such as multimedia works and computer programs and websites. You cannot copyright an idea!

Here is a resource that has all the information that I used for this post : http://www.officialsoftware.com/portal/account-resources-r-intro.asp

Hope that helps.