How To Protect Your Intellectual Property

From registering your business name, to registering with the patent office to defending your registered rights, this article provides a short course on everything to do with property rights, including copyrights, trademarks and patents.

"Paul Allen's recent patent infringement suit against Facebook, Google and other tech giants has fueled discussions from boardrooms to coffee shops. What needs to be protected, how can you put protections in place, and how do you defend intellectual property once registrations, patents, trademarks and copyrights are filed? Here's a primer on what every business owner should know.

Registering a Business Name Depending on whether a business goes by the legal name of its owner (John Smith Plumbing) or an assumed name (A-Team Plumbing), and depending on its location and business structure (sole proprietorship, partnership, LLC, or corporation), the path into local and state government databases of registered business names varies. The Business.gov website provides forms and instructions for this necessary step toward protecting your business name."