Disclaimer:  As I continue my series on intellectual property, let me first remind you that I am not a lawyer.  I am a student taking one law class.

Intellectual property refers to "creations of the mind" as stated in my last post.  Copyrights, patents, designs, and trademarks fall under this category.  Some things that would have these rights include (but are not limited to), literary works, musical compositions, art, design, chemical compounds, and even words, phrases, and symbols. 

Just a few examples of the above include:
symbols: Gene Simmons has rights to the money bag image.
phrases:  Paris Hilton has rights to "That's hot", Donald Trump has rights to "You're fired!"
and something really causing controversy right now...
words:  Facebook has trademarked the word "face" in the European Union and is close to doing the same in the United States.

So what does this mean?  It means that Gene Simmons, Paris Hilton, Donald Trump, Facebook, and anyone else with these types of rights, have the authority to take you to court and force you to stop using these symbols, phrases, and words.  In addition, they can sue you, because technically, they own them.  They however, can take their trademarked item and put it on any number of items and sell these items to make money, but you can't.

More on this to come...
© 2011 Adrienne McEwan