Intellectual Property, Business Law and Real Estate Firm: Miami Beach, Florida
Amaury Cruz & Associates is been dedicated to providing cost-effective, personalized representation. Founded by Amaury Cruz, the firm also includes attorneys Jorge I.G. del Valle, Christopher Van Dam (of Counsel), Henry Rodriguez and Rick Ruz. To schedule an appointment at the firm's offices in Miami Beach, please call 305.604.2051.
Protecting Intellectual Property
A company's biggest assets may be its intellectual property. Taking the necessary steps to protect these assets should be a priority. Unlike like traditional concepts of property, intellectual property covers the intangible creations of a business, inventor, or author. There are four main types of intellectual property, all of which can be relevant to a business: patents, trademarks, copyrights and trade secrets.
Copyrights
The Constitution of the United States provides exclusive rights to artists and authors who create original works in a tangible format. An author may be granted a period of exclusive ownership in this intellectual property for the author's life plus 70 years. Where a company owns the copyright, the period of exclusivity is 95 years from publication or 120 years from creation.
These rights allow the author to exclude others from displaying, reproducing, performing the work, or creating derivative works based on the original. Such exclusivity is limited by others' rights of fair use, compulsory licensing, and independent creation.
Authors can obtain copyright registrations from the Library of Congress' Copyright Office, which strengthens the ability to enforce their copyrights and are required to initiate a lawsuit.
Patents
As with copyrights, patent rights are granted pursuant to the Constitution of the United States. The monopoly given to inventors of useful, novel, and non-obvious utility patents is restricted to 20 years from the filing of the patent. In the case of design patents, protection extends for 14 years.
One must file a patent application with the Patent and Trademark Office within one year of publishing or selling the invention or lose all rights to obtain a patent in the U.S.
The act of filing a patent entails the eventual full disclosure of all elements of the invention to the public whether a patent is issued or not. For that reason, sometimes it is better to rely upon trade secret protection.
The exclusive rights provided by a patent are in some ways stronger than those of copyrights, as there are no fair use or compulsory license exceptions to patent rights and copyrights do not protect ideas or concepts. Additionally, a subsequent inventor who independently creates the same innovation has no rights to patent or exploit that invention. An author who independently creates a work of authorship, on the other hand, may claim copyright protection for the same subject matter.
Trade Secrets
This type of intellectual property grew out of historical legal developments and only recently has been codified into statutes.
Trade secrets can be any type of information, such as a process, method, formula, technique or device that a company wishes to conceal from competitors.
There are no institutions that help protect this type of intellectual property. The company itself must take all necessary efforts to maintain the secrecy of the information or device. This must be done through contractual means as well as implementing reasonable security measures.
Once the secrecy status is lost, no matter how that came to pass, it can never be regained. Third parties are free to independently discover the secret or employ reverse engineering to discover it.
Trademarks
This is perhaps the most familiar form of intellectual property. Companies constantly barrage us with their trademarks. Whether on T.V., newspapers, or signs along road, trademarks are everywhere. Trademarks are at the core of our capitalist economy. They serve as source identifiers upon which consumers lay their expectation of product or service quality. It is this public expectation interest that forms the basis for trademark rights.
Unlike copyrights and patents, one's trademark rights have the potential to last forever.
When a patent is obtained, it is through the use of a trademark that one will market the invention. When that patent expires, it is through the goodwill developed in the trademark that continued financial success in the face of rising competition will be ensured. Given the incredible value that can accrue over time in trademarks, it is crucial that companies expend the necessary time and effort to ensure they protect these assets. One of the steps in achieving this goal is obtaining a federal trademark registration with the Patent and Trademark Office.
Contact Us
To schedule an appointment, please call (305) 604-2051, or contact the firm online.
Amaury Cruz & Associates
1560 Lenox Ave., Suite 207
Miami Beach, FL 33139
305.604.2051 Voice
305.604.2011 Fax
Representing clients throughout South Florida, including Miami, Miami-Dade County, Coral Gables, Aventura, Broward County, North Miami, South Miami, Miami Beach, Hialeah, Fort Lauderdale, and Pembroke Pines, as well as nationally and abroad.