Exam 9: Intellectual Property Rights and the Internet

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.

In limited circumstances customer lists are protected under trade secret laws.

A copyright is the exclusive right given by federal statutes to the creator of a literary or an artistic work to use, reproduce, and display the work.

The America Invents Act:

Stealing trade secrets can result in fines, but not imprisonment.

ICANN is a nonprofit corporation responsible for:

Although processes and machines are eligible for patent protection, manufactures and compositions of matter are not.

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?

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.

Protection for trade dress is available under the Lanham Act.

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

If other persons are permitted to use a trademark, it will lose its exclusive character and become generic.

Under the Semiconductor Chip Protection Act's _______, competitors may not only study mask works but may also use the results of that study to design their own semiconductor chip products embodying their own original masks.

Trade dress can be any word, name, symbol, device, or combination of these used to identify a product.

The measure of damages for misappropriation of a trade secret is:

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

When secret information is shared or communicated for a special purpose and the person receiving the information knows it is not to be made known, it loses the protection it had while secret.

The Lanham Act grants protection for:

Trademarks may be used to protect the exclusive right to identify either products or services.

In order for a work to be copyrightable, it must possess a significant amount of creativity.