Trademark and Copyright enforcement to protect digital assets

September 29, 2016
Trademark Monitoring

Trademark and Copyright enforcement to protect digital assets. In an online world the digital assets of the business are open to a large range of fraud and abuse. Digital assets can be legally protected via Trademark and Copyright ownership claims. Examples of trademark and copyright infringement are fake websites and phishing sites, unauthorized social media accounts, rogue mobile apps, spoofed domain registrations, leaked private business documents and more.

copyright-fullWhen business trademark and copyright properties are available in the public domain the organization has the rights to enforce their property ownership.

Copyright vs Trademark

Two main type of protection the business can use are Trademark and Copyright claims.

Copyright is a form of protection provided to the authors of “original works of authorship”. Copyright includes works of art, photos, pictures, graphic designs, drawings and other forms of images.

A Trademark is a word, name, symbol or device which is used in trade with goods to indicate the source of the goods and to distinguish them from the goods of others. Trademark rights are used to prevent others from using a confusingly similar mark, but not to prevent others from making the same goods or from selling the same goods or services under a clearly different mark. Trademark Monitoring protects a business name title, slogan, or other short word phrase. Copyright law does not protect a bare phrase, slogan, or trade name.

A company logo image design is protected either by trademark Monitoring or copyright law depending on whether its use is intended to identify the source of goods or services. Usually a company logo design in protected by a Trademark claim.

In an evolving online world the business must take effort to protect it’s digital assets. Protection is usually made via either a trademark and copyright claim. First the business needs a proactive detection of such infringement. Second is to deploy the appropriate response in negotiating with third parties for the removal of the infringement via the appropriate legal channel.

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