Copyrights &

Trademarks

Puerto Rico Business Trial Lawyers with 90+ Years of Experience

Copyrights protect creative or written works of various expression. Trademarks protect names or symbols associated with products, brands, or companies. Both are separate areas of intellectual property, protected by law. Schedule a consultation with our Puerto Rico commercial litigation attorneys at Casellas Alcover & Burgos, P.S.C. regarding copyright and trademark law.

Copyrights: An Overview

Any original, creative, and tangible work is automatically protected by the rights designated under copyright law. The rights you have under copyright law as the owner of an original creative work include:

The right to display the work
The right to create derivative works
The right to reproduce the work
The right to distribute copies of the work

Essentially, you control the way in which your work is released and seen by the public. This collection of different rights can be utilized or licensed in a number of ways. As the owner of the work, you can choose to assign, license, or otherwise transfer any or all of these rights to other parties, or reserve them all.

Trademarks: An Overview

Trademarks protect brands, company names, symbols, logos, words, designs, product packaging/trade dress, and other “service marks” that identify one party’s goods and work from another. Even certain sounds and smells can be trademarked!

Examples of service marks include:

Logos
Slogans
Brand names

As with copyright law, the service marks you create are protected even if you do not register them. You have the right to use your service mark, and to protect against infringement. However, registering your company’s trademarks has some legal advantages, such as making enforcement more straightforward. There are also different levels of trademark protection, such as state and federal level trademarks.

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