CCT206H5 Lecture Notes - Common Law Copyright, Trade Secret, Moral Rights
12 Mar 2014
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Document Summary
Intellectual property includes intangible assets such as works of authorship, ideas, and business goodwill. Protection is secured through four separate bodies of law, patent law, trade secret law, trademark law, and copyright law. Patent law protects new, useful, and nonobvious inventions. Trade secret law protects any formula, pattern, practice, device or compilation of information used in business that provides an advantage over competitors who do not know or use it. Trademark law protects words and symbols that are used in connection with products and services and are tangible representations of business goodwill associated with those products and services. Copyright law protects the expressions contained in original works of authorship. The copyright revision act pre-empted common law copyright protection by providing copyright protection for both published and unpublished works as long as the work is fixed in tangible form. A copyright protects the expression of an idea: what copyright law does not protect is the idea embodied in the expression.
