Usually, determining whether something can be copyrighted is easy. Books, movies, songs are copyrightable. Artistic drawings, paintings and photographs are also copyrightable. When you start moving towards more technical works and drawings, it can become a little trickier. Generally speaking, drawings, photographs, and other two-dimensional and three-dimensional expressions that visually depict three-dimensional objects are copyrightable. At the Trademark Engine, we can help you copyright your:

• Written work such as fiction, nonfiction, poetry, textbooks, reference works or articles
• Directories or catalogs, advertising copy
• Computer programs
• Website or online materials
• Photograph
• Art Work
• Maps
• Technical Drawings
• Recorded performance of music or sound
• Written music & Lyrics, Screenplay or script
• A Choreographic work
• A recorded score for a movie or play
• Feature film, documentary film, animated film, television show, video, or other Audi-Visual Work

You are granted a copyright in your work the minute you create it by common law. Assuming your work is original and has a basic amount of creativity, you may claim ownership and protection. The problem is without registering, you cannot enforce your rights in a court of law in America. That leads to the question below as to why you should register your mark and not just rely upon your common law rights.

While a trademark protects a word, phrase, symbol and/or design that distinguishes the source of the goods, a patent protects “any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof” 35 U.S.C. § 101. Unlike trademarks, which protect a brand name and recognition, a patent protects an invention, including the functionality or design. A patent gives the owner the exclusive right to manufacture products or employ processes covered by the patent for 20 years from the earliest priority date. A trademark, if properly maintained, can last forever. Copyrights, meanwhile, protect artistic works such as books, photographs, arts, movies and music.

Generally speaking, the owner of a copyright has the right to do the following:

• reproduce copies of the work
• prepare derivative works
• distribute copies
• perform the work publicly either in person or recorded
• display the work publicly

When you are investing heavily in a marketing campaign with a slogan, you should consider registering your slogan as well. You can also register short catch phrases or sayings when you are selling them as part of merchandise like shirts or hats. The same rules apply that are applicable to picking your company name. Namely, the slogan should be inherently distinctive and creative or have developed a secondary meaning. In other words, you probably can’t protect “really good pizza” unless that saying has become so famous that most consumers associate it with a certain pizza brand.

In most cases, a copyright lasts for the life of the author plus 70 years. If the author of the work died in 2070, then the copyright, in most situations, would last until 2140. For works made for hire, and for anonymous and pseudonymous works, the duration of copyright is 95 years from publication or 120 years from creation, whichever is shorter.