Our Practice Areas
Intellectual Property
Your company’s unique innovations and brand is its lifeblood.
Whether you need protection in the form of copyright, trademark, patents, or software and licensing agreements, Ser & Associates is fully prepared to leverage your intellectual property rights to the extent permitted under the law.
Intellectual property encompasses some of your business’ most valuable assets: From patents and trade secrets to copyrights and trademarks, there are several different categories that your intellectual property can fall under, and it’s important that you are familiar with them all.
This is because unless your intellectual property is properly registered, you do not get as many legal protections, which can be devastating to your brand’s integrity and business.
Trademarks
Trademarks protect intellectual property in the form of symbols, designs, words, slogans, or marks that a company uses to identify their business to the public.
The purpose of trademarks is to distinguish your company from its competitors and bring recognition to your product or service from the moment it is seen or heard by a customer.
Ser & Associates regularly assists its clients with registering its trademarks with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). This includes preliminary searches to determine the likelihood the USPTO will register the mark, completing the initial application with the USPTO, and preparing all responses to USPTO. If the USPTO rejects a trademark application, Ser & Associates will also handle the appealing process.
Ser & Associates, in the alternative, can also prepare state trademarks. However, the protections offered through the state are not as strong when the trademark is registered federally.
Nevertheless, to keep your trademark, you must actively use it and protect it. This means not allowing others to use it and exercising your rights if someone does.
If an individual or entity deprives you of your right to use your own trademark, Ser & Associates will assist you in protecting your trademarks by preparing and sending cease and desist letters and, if necessary, pursuing litigation against the individual or entity infringing on your trademark.
Copyrights
Copyrighting protects original works of authorship including literary, dramatic, musical, and artistic works, such as poetry, novels, movies, songs, computer software, and architecture.
A copyright does not protect facts, ideas, systems, or methods of operation, although it may protect the way these items are expressed.
Unlike a trademark, copyrights provide legal protection for original, creative works. The creative work must be fixed in a tangible form (e.g., written down, recorded, etc.) and can be either published or unpublished.
However, even though the work doesn’t need to be published to be protected, a copyright cannot merely protect an idea or concept. Instead, they protect the actual story that you wrote, song that you recorded, or artwork that you drew. All of which is something you worked hard to create; thus, Ser & Associates will vehemently protect your interests.
Copyright protection is acquired the moment your work is created and put into a tangible form. However, for the utmost protection and for the greater likelihood of succeeding within a copyright infringement action, you should register the work with the U.S. Copyright Office.
At Ser & Associates, we will assist you with this registration and protection of a copyright from any and all forms of infringement, but we can prepare all the contracts related to your intellectual property as well.
This includes preparing non-disclosure agreements (NDAs), licensing agreements, and franchise agreements to protect and guarantee your best interest is achieved.
