The big four in terms of types of intellectual property are patents, industrial design,

copyright, and trade-marks. Others are integrated circuit topographies, plant breeder’s rights,
trade secrets, and soft value IP – corp. and employee knowledge. A patent is an exchange of a
monopoly in exchange for a technical teaching. It is governed by the patent act which is a federal
piece of legislation that gives the owner exclusive right to make, use, sell, and offer for sale the
invention. This act defines an invention as a new and useful art, process, machine, manufacture
or composition of matter or improvement in any of them. The tem of a patent is twenty years
from when the application is filed and is not renewable. A patent is a national right and does not
extend outside the country of application. There are two exclusions within the patent system
which are methods of medical treatment and methods of personal skill.

The three main purposes of the intellectual property system is research, protection, and
licensing. In terms of ownership, the inventor is generally considered to be the first owner of the
invention unless they have signed those rights over to someone else. The public disclosure bar
says not to talk about your invention before you file the patent application. In both Canada and
the US, as long as you come engage the patent system within one year of your disclosure the
patent is considered an accepted disclosure. The non-disclosure agreement says that a person
acknowledges your idea and everything you tell them is in confidence. The first person to file the
patent application is the one that will be entitled to the patent.

Anything that is liable to be kept confidential can be kept as a trade secret. If something
has a very long or short useful life it may be a good subject for a trade secret. There is no time
limit but once it becomes public there is no more protection. If your product is not easily reverse
engineered, it is a good candidate for trade secrecy. It is good practice to spread bits of a trade
secret around so no one knows the whole secret. Also only those who need to know should
know. Internal security should be examined. Industrial designs protect the appearance of
something. They have a ten year time limit in Canada from the day of registration. A trademark
must distinguish your goods and services from those of your competitors. There is no time limit
for a trademark registration, it has a fifteen year term which can be renewed. Trademark
registration gives you the exclusive right to use your trademark in the entire country and gives
you the right to protect against others using a similar confusingly similar trademark.
 Virtually everything you create in written or electronic form is automatically protected
world-wide. You gain protection against others copying your material. It is not an exclusive right
meaning someone else could independently create the same work. It is valid for the life of the
author plus fifty years. Moral rights are defined as the right to be associated with a work and the
right to the integrity of a work.

Trade secrets are anything that is confidential