Question

What is the purpose of copyrights, patents, and trademarks?

If a student uses University resources to develop and/or market software, is he/she required to notify the University?

What are the benefits of notifying the University?

What is the difference between a patent and a copyright?

Answer 1

The purpose of copyrights, patents and trademarks are to secure an individual's inventions, ideas, and brand(style). so that other people cannot use these intellectual properties without owners acceptance. if used without owners acceptance will result in a penalty when the owner raises a complaint on the theft of his intellectual properties in any court according to the law(legal rules).

Yes, if a student uses universities intellectual resources to develop or invent something, it is better/necessary to notify the university in advance and take acceptance form if possible.

The benefits of notifying the university are to have reliability, confidence in marketing and relieve any unseen consequences/circumstances in the future which may lead to penalty/punishment by law. sometimes it happens that university may pardon the student with a warning, but in most of the cases it results in expelling the candidate from university and action will be taken according to legalities.

patent: patent refers to the invention or discovery

copyright: copyright refers to the artistic work such as expression of idea/process

In simple terminology, a patent can be considered on products developed using copyrights.