How Do Patents Differ From Copyrights And Trademarks?

Patents, trademarks and copyrights come from the same fundamental idea and legal necessity. These are types of intellectual property that secure the rights of inventors and creators. However, these three have some significant differences.
The fundamental difference is that the patents safeguard rights over a tangible or conceptual invention, whereas the copyrights secure documents or images created by the author. A trademark, on the contrary, can be a word or a logo that can distinguish products of one firm from the others.

The next essential thing that differentiates patents from others is the high level of safety provided by it on account of strict liability principles. In other words, irrespective of the fact that the infringer was or was not aware that he was violating the patent, he will be considered responsible for the same. Thus patents provide greater safety against infringement, while copyright and trademarks provide for reasonable use and other exceptions.

A patent is normally valid for 20 years and then it switches from exclusive ownership of the owner, to the public domain availability of the idea. On the other hand, trademarks continue for an infinite duration while copyrights are usually valid for 60-70 years from the date the work was created. Further, patents can protect your invention or process in a very stringent manner. This means that while copyrights protect only the expression of ideas, patents cover the processes as well as the basic principles behind a creation.

Finally, the processes for submitting an application for these different legal mechanisms are also quite different from each other. For example, the application for a patent needs to have a proper disclosure of the product, on the other hand the one for copyright needs enclosing a copy of the work itself, and the one for trademark simply needs a proper search for similar marks in the market.

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