Question

5. Jill recently invented a new computer chip that employs different circuitry to consume far less energy than previous chips, and it requires special firmware that Jill coded herself. She has not sold the chip or publicly disclosed how she made it. She would like to start a business to commercialize the chip. She has already coined a term to use for a brand name, designed marketing materials, and secured a domain name. What should Jill do to protect these various items of intellectual property?

Answer 1

Jill has already decided a brand name for Chip which she wants to commercialize. Moreover she designed marketing Materials and secured a domain name. These are all the forms of Intellectual Property. In order to protect Intellectual Property, She need to register all her Intellectual Properties under the Provision of Intellectual Property Rights. Now the question arises what are intellectual property rights (IPR)? Well, simply speaking in order to understand IPR we need to first understand the term “Intellectual Property(IP)”. So, let me explain IP.

The term Intellectual Property means the Creations of Mind such as Inventions, literary and artistic works, designs and symbols, names and images used in commerce. There are various kinds of Intellectual Property such as

1. Trademarks- Brand Name, Punchlines, Symbols, Logos, Slogans, Domain Name etc.
2. Copy Rights- Artistic and Literary Works ,books, music, painting, maps, databases, computer programming , advertisements etc
3. Patents-Any scientific inventions which are novel, non-obvious and capable of commercial application
4. Designs- 3-D features such as shape or surface of an article, 2-D features such as patterns, lines etc
5. Geographical Indication-Names of places of origin of products

Clearly, Jill has products like Brand Name, Domain Name and Marketing Materials such as posters, logo, symbols or slogans which are all covered under Trademark. So In order to protect her products, she needs to register these products under Trademark Registrations Act of the country.