Intellectual property: how to protect your own creations?

Whether it is the design of a literary or artistic work, an imagined model or software, sometimes you have to make so many sacrifices to see your project come to fruition. This requires not only a time investment, but also a financial one. Unfortunately, it is not uncommon to see your masterpiece copied or plagiarized as soon as it hits the market.

This phenomenon, which rages in many sectors of activity, reduces the efforts made by creators to nothing. It make them lose considerable resources. Fortunately, it is now possible to protect one's creations thanks to intellectual property.

What is Intellectual Property?

Intellectual property brings together a set of provisions both legal and functional that are put in place to protect innovations, inventions and creations. It protects creators by granting them rights over their own works. Intellectual property includes industrial property and literary and artistic property.

These two variants apply to creations of different types and differ from each other in how they work. Because intellectual property legislation is quite complex, it may be beneficial to seek the expertise of a intellectual property lawyer from the beginning of your creative project.

What means are available to protect a creation?

There is a variety of creations that can benefit from protection with the national institute Intellectual Property (INPI). Depending on the nature of the creation, many means are provided to allow the creator to have the monopoly of exploitation.

Copyright

It is a device which protects the original works, that is to say carrying the personality of the author. He protects literary works and is acquired from the moment the creation is made. However, you must be able to prove that you are indeed the author of the work and especially on what date it was created.

When all these prerogatives are respected, this right allows the author to have a right of inspection on the context of presentation of his creation. He can authorize or prohibit the publication if he wishes. Similarly, this allows him to obtain compensation in the event of dissemination.

Trademark registration

A company's brand is what identifies it and sets it apart from the competition. It is important that it be protected, at the risk of being plagiarized. For this purpose, trademark rights is the device that allows protect own signs and distinctive insignia. Each product or service relates to a certain class.

Thus, it is up to you to find the class or classes to which the marks you wish to protect relate. When granted, the trademark right allows you to act and take advantage of against third parties and especially oppose the use of the same services or products dated after filing. In addition, it brings a guarantee of quality to the public.

Filing of designs and models

The filing of designs and models is a device that allows protect a creation relating to the appearance of a product. Whether industrial or artisanal, your company's products must maintain a unique design. This is why the INPI allows you to file a design or model relating to your innovation.

This device protects your aesthetic innovations and guarantees you the monopoly of use for 5 years. This protection is renewable for up to 25 years. Another advantage of the design and model filing is that it benefit from double protection. It is protected by copyright and industrial property law.