Intellectual Property/Internet & Domain Name Law

Friday July 25, 2008

The Dummit Law Firm
213 West Sixth Street
Winston-Salem, NC 27101
Telephone 336.777.8081
Facsimile 336.777.0160

Intellectual property laws confer a bundle of exclusive rights in relation to the particular form in which information or ideas are expressed or presented, and not in relation to the ideas or concepts themselves. The term "intellectual property" denotes the specific legal rights which authors, inventors and other IP holders may have and exercise, and not the intellectual work itself. Intellectual property laws are designed to protect different forms of subject matter although in some cases there is a degree of overlap. These forms include:

Copyright, which may exist in creative and artistic works (e.g. books, movies, music, paintings, photographs, and software) and give a copyright holder the exclusive right to control reproduction or adaptation of such works for a certain period of time.
Patent, which may be granted for a new, useful and non-obvious invention and gives the patent holder a right to prevent others from practicing the invention without a license from the inventor for a certain period of time, typically 20 years from the filing date of a patent application. A design patent or plant patent may also be obtained in some circumstances.
Trademark, which is a distinctive sign which is used to distinguish the products or services of different businesses.
An industrial design right, which protects the form of appearance, style or design of an industrial object (e.g. spare parts, furniture, or textiles).
Trade secret, or confidential company information, which is secret, non-public information concerning the commercial practices or proprietary knowledge of a business. Disclosing this information publicly may sometimes be illegal.

The basic public policy rationale for intellectual property laws is that they protect the rights of the inventor, author, or creator. The rationale for patent law is that it grants the right to exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, selling or importing the invention into the country where it was patented. The public policy rational for trademark rights are that they may be 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. The public policy rationale for copyright law is that it is a form of protection provided to the authors of "original works of authorship" including literary, dramatic, musical, artistic and certain other intellectual works, both published and unpublished.

Our attorneys provide comprehensive service on intellectual property matters, including:

Enforcement of intellectual property rights including patent, trademark and copyright litigation, domain name retention and registration, licensing, negotiation and arbitration.
General client counseling regarding confidentiality agreements, government research funding, university-industry relations, license agreements, corporate sponsored research contracts, development agreements, joint ventures, due diligence strategies, technology transfer agreements, software protection, and employment agreements.

Our attorneys were the first to file a Complaint against RegisterFly, a non bankrupt company that defrauded hundreds of thousands of clients and misappropriated countless domain names from clients. Domain names fall squarely under the purview of intellectual property and should be legally protected as such. For more information about this lawsuit, please visit http://www.registerfly-lawsuit.com. Updates on the case are posted as soon as they become available.

Our attorneys will also represent clients who have been accused of downloading music, movie and other files illegally from the internet. We are here to protect your rights and obtain the best outcome for our clients as possible.