Chapter 7: Intellectual Property and Information Technology

A complete set of vocabulary flashcards covering intellectual property law concepts including trade secrets, patents, copyrights, statutory protections, and duration rules.

Intellectual Property

Federal and state laws that protect intellectual property from misappropriation and infringement by putting patents, copyrights, trademarks, and trade secrets on them.

Trade Secrets

A product, formula, pattern, design, compilation of data, customer list, or other business secret.

Reverse Engineering

Taking apart and examining a rival's product or recreating a secret recipe.

Misappropriation of a Trade Secret

The unlawful misappropriation of another's trade secret, for which legal actions include recovering profits made by the offender, recovering damages, and obtaining an injunction.

Economic Espionage Act

A federal statute that makes it a crime for a person to convert a trade secret for their own benefit, knowing or intending to cause injury to the owners of the trade secret.

Patent

A grant by the federal government to an inventor of the right to use, sell, or license the invention for a limited amount of time.

Federal Patent Statute

A federal statute that establishes the requirements for obtaining a patent and protects patented inventions from infringement.

U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit

A specific federal appeals court that hears cases from the Patent Trial and Appeal Board.

Patent Application

An application filed with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) that must contain a written description of the invention sought to be patented.

Provisional Application

An application that an inventor may file with the PTO to obtain three months to prepare a final patent application.

Patent Number

A number assigned to a patent once granted that the patent holder can search up freely for a description of the product.

Patentable Subject Matters

Categories that can be patented: machines, processes, articles of manufacture, compositions of matter, improvements to existing machines/processes/manufacture/compositions of matter, asexually reproduced plants, and living material invented by a person.

Novel (Patent Requirement)

A requirement for obtaining a patent stating the invention must be new and not yet invented.

Useful (Patent Requirement)

A requirement for obtaining a patent stating that the invention must have a practical purpose.

Nonobvious (Patent Requirement)

A requirement for obtaining a patent establishing that an invention cannot be patented if it is obvious.

Utility Patent Period

The duration of utility patent protection, which lasts for 20 years.

Public Domain

The status of an invention once its patent period expires, meaning anyone can produce and sell the product without paying the prior patent holder.

Patent Infringement

The unauthorized use of another's patent.

Design Patent

A patent that may be obtained for the ornamental nonfunctional design of an item.

Copyright

A legal right that gives the author of qualifying subject matter, who meets requirements under copyright law, the right to publish, produce, sell, license, and distribute the work.

Copyright Revision Act

A federal statute that establishes requirements for obtaining a copyright and protects copyrighted works from infringement.

Tangible Writing

Writings that are physically seen and are subject to copyright registration and protection.

Registration of Copyrights

The process where work must be the original work of the author, with copyright automatically granted the moment it is created and fixed in tangible form.

Berne Convention

An international copyright treaty.

Individual Copyright Period

The duration of copyright protection granted to individual authors, which lasts for their lifetime plus 70 years.

Business Copyright Period

The duration of copyright protection for works owned by a business, lasting either 120 years from the year of creation or 95 years from the year of first publication.