On Thu, Jun 16, 2011 at 11:23 PM, Bernt Hansson <be...@bah.homeip.net>wrote:
> Unless you work the trademark in you have to pay to register the name. > I'm not sure by what mean by "work the trademark in" but every business is entitled to use tm or sm identification without registration. However by officially registering it, the business is afforded additional legal rights and is in a much more defensible position. Also as most IP lawyers would say, trademark law is the law of the jungle. That is to say the biggest gorilla wins. > Copyright you get without registration and without payment, and one > can't give it up. Again, registration is pretty important if you want to an expanded ability to legally enforce it. And you can assign your copyright away. In fact, I would recommend to anyone seeking a 3rd party to create content for them to have copyright assignment to them for basically any project. You don't want your web design company to come after you when there's been a falling out and you're with a different company. A company owns the copyright when an employee creates the work, however by default a contracted 3rd party retains it for any works they created under the contract. And while we're on the topic of clearing up IP laws, there are two basic types of patents and they are good for a maxium of 14 or 20 years. There is no renewal of patents, when they expire they expire. Additionally, the creator(s) of the patent is entitled to the right to patent it regardless of their employment status. This means in theory it's possible for your employer to own the copyright to some code you have created, yet you retain the patent rights. This is not official legal advice and you should consult a legal expert who assumes liability for advice, as I do not. -- Adam Vande More _______________________________________________ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org"
