Intellectual Property

Yes, piracy is considered theft. The term is usually used in conjunction with intellectual property, such as software or music. It can also mean services, such as internet connections or cable.

In the 'Jack Sparrow' type piracy, it is out and out armed robbery.

Under current copyright laws in Ghana (revised 2005) an infringement of copyright occurs when any of the following rights are violated.

(a) the reproduction of a copyrighted work in any manner or form,
(b) the translation, adaptation, arrangement or any other transformation
of the work,
(c) public performance, broadcasting and/or communication of the work
to the public,
(d) distribution to the public of originals or copies of the work by
way of first sales or other first transfer of ownership, and
(e) commercial rental to the public of originals or copies of the work.

You cannot "patent" a webpage.

However, the contents of a web site, those portions that would be considered to have "sufficient originality" would be afforded copyright protection.

The actual coding, in all likelihood, wouldn't qualify.

Product names cannot be protected by copyright. To determine if it has been registered as a trademark, you may search the database of the trademark office of the country in which you intend to do business.

you may obtain a patent for your new use, or method making use of the composition of matter, provided you satisfy patentability requirements, e.g., novelty and inventive step. However you cannot re-patent the originally claimed subject matter - it ould lack novelty.

The term legally enforceable means that it is a rule or regulation that if broken, consequences can be enforced. Some examples include running a stop sign, speeding, harming someone in a fight, and arson.

Regardless of your location, you will need to contact the U.S. Patent and Trademark office to fill out an application for a patent. Online through the USPTO, you can also do research and make sure that no one else already has a patent for whatever you are applying for. Conducting this search will save you a lot of time and money down the line.

If you would like to fill out an application for a patent, you will need to go to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Before filling out an application, you should do a search to make sure no one else has the patent already. If possible, you might hire a lawyer to assist you.

You really should invest the $30 for a S&W factory letter. If it left the factory the way you describe it, then you need a professional to look at it. If it didn't, you will know what it is supposed to look like. If all the work was done after leaving the factory, it may still have substantial value. It will depend on who did the engraving and if they are a "known" name.

IP rights such as copyright and patent give creators the exclusive to ascribe value to and derive income from their creations. For copyright, this may allow a writer to quit his day job, or a band to come out of the garage and go on tour. For patent, particularly in pharmaceuticals, it gives the company that funded the development of the product at least a fighting chance at recouping the millions of dollars they invested in research. Without these protections, there would be a significantly reduced incentive to create. Trademark (as well as trade dress) is a little different. The point there is to reduce fraud in the marketplace by ensuring that the big red-orange jug marked "Tide" really is Tide detergent, and not some cheap knock-off. It may seem that trademark laws benefit the companies and products, but in the end, trademark protects the consumer. To protect someone's work

A nondisclosure agreement is a contract signed by one party to protect the private interests of the second party by having the first party agree to keep secret certain defined details shared between the two. In other words, it is a contract that restricts access to certain information by preventing a person (or persons) from disclosing that information to external parties.

This is usually required by corporations and other private entities to protect proprietary secrets or other sensitive information so that they cannot fall into the hands of competitors.

In some cases, even a bilateral nondisclosure agreement may be involved, which requires that both parties agree to not disclosure certain secret information that they both will be offering or sharing.

Probably not; patents can protect new and useful processes, machines, articles of manufacture, compositions of matter, and improvements thereto. A symbol used as a designation of a source of goods or services can be protected under trademark law. If the symbol is sufficiently original, copyright law may apply.

Patents generally last for 20 years from the first date of filing for priority. Patents filed prior to 1995 in the USA, however, may have a duration of 17 years from the date of ISSUE, or 20 years from filing, whichever is longer.

Patents on medicine often obtain statutory extensions, under US law, for certain delays caused by FDA review. This can substantially increase the patent duration beyond 20 years.

Thomas Edison was a well respected scientist with over 1000 patents, exact number would be 1093

Trade secret protection comes closest because you can require confidentiality agreements with anyone who wants to know the idea.

Patents do not protect ideas -- only inventions that incorporate ideas.

Copyrights do not protect ideas -- only the creative work of authorship describing those ideas or an invention using those ideas. However, if you were to misappropriate and publish a description of a trade secret, you could be sued for copyright infringement. Good question of how the "damages" would be calculated, as infringement of the copyright is separate from the value of the "idea".

Although "common law" trademark would protect an established logo even without registration, registration allows nationwide priority (it's protected even in a region where you're not doing business (yet)), incontenstability (no one can say your mark is "confusingly similar" to theirs), and various additional rights in court.

Copyright is automatic, and comes into effect as soon as a work of sufficient originality is fixed in a tangible medium.

By definition "secondary meaning" pertains to market perception of the name as a brand for those particular goods or services.

A lot of trademarks and names are legally protected, but not all.

For a trademark to be protected it has to be registered as a trademark, for which you will have to pay a fee. After that it is protected against other peoples use of it, but normally only in the country you register it for.

A world wide trademark protection is costly and is very difficoult to uphold by law.

As for names as in surnames, most are not "legally" protected as such, but when it comes to rare family names, one can not automatically take one without asking for the approval of the families first. Laws regarding this however vary from country to country.

Yes there are. Copyright law/Intellectual Property law exists in almost every country, and in most cases where it doesn't exist those countries are in the process of creating their own statutes. Additionally, spurred on by the "borderless" nature of the internet Intellectual Property law (especially copyright) is becoming more and more standardized. In the next ten years there may, very possibly, be only one copyright law worldwide.

Copyright law gives the creator of a work the exclusive right to copy, alter, distribute, perform, or display the work, or authorize others to do so, for a limited time.

From the barrel rollstamp, it appears to be a model 1894. The model marking should be on the top tang, behind the hammer. If there is a tang sight mounted there, you can remove the two screws and you will find the model rollstamped there. The model 1894 was produced from summer of 1894 to 1935, in various styles of rifles, and carbines, with many options. Calibers were .44-40, .38-40, 32-20, and .25-20. Early .25-20's were marked .25-20M (marlin) while later were regular .25-20, but the two cartridges interchange. Values of these early guns depend on the variation, condition, and special order features, so without knowing all these things, and estimate is not possible.

Use of the trademark symbol is optional, but it doesn't hurt. For logos it's often part of the image file, so it would actually be more work not to use it.

This page is full of reasonable examples. In the banner we have the Answers logo with TM, and at the very bottom we have a copyright notification, but for running text including the word "Answers" (such as the Answers Properties list header and content), there are no markings.

Other websites are almost cartoonishly consistent with their use of the symbol--every logo, every slogan, every time the name of the company or its products appear, there's a helpful (r) reminder in case you'd forgotten in the intervening half-inch that they've registered it all. These are cases where using the indicia is distracting.

What you want is a balance.

Patent protection allows inventors to ascribe value to their intellectual property, and ideally derive an income from it. It also gives the companies or individuals funding expensive research a chance at recouping their investment. In pharmaceuticals, for example, research and testing can take many years and many millions of dollars; giving the developer a head start on selling it won't necessarily make all that money back, but it should help.

Without giving the inventors the brief period of monopoly provided by patent protection, there is little chance of being able to derive income from creativity, and therefore little incentive.

Starbucks has nearly 100 registered trademarks, but the most familiar is their mermaid logo.