Exam 10: Intellectual Property Rights

A copyright bestows upon the creator of an artistic or literary work a federal statutory right to exclusively:

A trademark is any word, name, symbol, device, or combination of these used to identify a product.

To prevail in an action for trade dress infringement, a plaintiff must prove that its trade dress is distinctive and nonfunctional and the defendant's trade dress is confusingly similar to the plaintiff's.

It is important to protect trade dress against adoption by a competitor because such adoption can:

Computer programs are subject to patent protection.

To be patentable, an invention must be new and not obvious to a person of ordinary knowledge and skill in the art or technology to which the invention is related.

Protection for trade dress is available under the Lanham Act.

Three types of patents available under U.S. law are:

Where privacy or nondisclosure of proprietary information is desired, it would be best to seek protection under:

Under the Berne Convention Implementation Act of 1988, it is no longer mandatory that works published after March 1, 1989 contain a notice of copyright.

The typical U.S. copyright now runs for 28 years, with a right of renewal for an additional 28 years.

Computer programs are subject to trade secrets protection.

A copyright owner may prohibit even limited use of copyrighted material if it is used for parody or criticism.

Herman Corporation is engaged in preparing a marketing campaign consisting of electronic and print images. Drawings and photographs for the campaign are coming from a variety of sources, including popular magazines, international newspapers, and web sources. The marketing vice president asserts that the company may use the images under the fair use doctrine. What factors should be considered in the application of the fair use doctrine?

Trade dress protection under the Lanham Act is the same as that provided a qualified unregistered trademark, and does not provide all the protection available to the holder of a registered trademark.

Agreements to license computer programs under conditions that restrict their transfer to third parties are illegal under antitrust laws.

All types of patents available under U.S. law are entitled to the same quality and duration of protection once initial filing is perfected with the Patent and Trademark Office in Washington, D.C.

Smarts and Then Some, Inc. developed a software program after several years of research and development. The particular software program was then test-marketed, at which point a competitor filed suit claiming that the Smarts and Then Some program violated the competitor's copyright on a program they too were test-marketing. What is the test to determine whether a copyright has been violated?

A showing that an invention as a whole would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art when the invention was patented is called "subsequent art."

Trade dress refers to the packaging look and overall image of a product.