Intellectual Property Copyrights Patents Trademarks and Trade Secrets

Intellectual Property: Copyrights, Patents, Trademarks, and Trade Secrets. Jonathan D’Silva MMI Intellectual Property 900 State Street, Suite 301 Erie, PA 16501 Office: 814 -459 -6055 Direct: 814 -459 -6056 jdsilva@mmiip. com www. mmiip. com

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Closing Considerations

Considerations • What are you protecting? • How easy is it to protect? • How easily can a competitor reverse engineer it? • Do you only make one product? • What are your company’s long-term goals? • Patents are an easier to sell to investors • What can you afford to do?

Layer Protection • Combine various types of protection • Copyrights with Patents (e. g. software code is protected by copyright, the implementation can be patented) • Trademarks with Trade Secrets (e. g. market a confidential process under a brand name) • Provisional Patents with Trade Secrets (e. g. file provisional patents during product development to get a jump start on competition)

Recordkeeping • Create an Invention Notebook System • • • Assign a notebook to each engineer/developer. Track the whereabouts of the notebooks. Electronic copies are OK but keep a paper original. Periodically notarize and witness any additions to the notebooks. Notebooks and all copies to be returned to employer when employee ends employment. • Employee IP Agreements/Acknowledgements

Contracts • Agreements with: • Vendors • Third parties collaborators • Subcontractors • Contract workers • Employees • Investors • Identify and clarify IP ownership in all relationships

Other Considerations • Confidentiality • Variations • • Brainstorm how else what you do/sell can be done Your “final” design isn’t necessarily the best design Your design isn’t the only possible design Consider protecting those designs that you aren’t using • Licensing vs. Ownership