Copyrights grant
an exclusive right to authors, composers, artists, or their
assignees to copy, exhibit, distribute, or perform their works
for a period of the life of author plus 50 years. Under work
for hire, the employer is granted copyright; if the product
is published, for 75 years, or if unpublished, 100 years from
the date of creation. The subject of protection are products
of the mind that are produced in tangible expressions (writings,
music, sculpture, computer software, graphs, drawings).
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Mask
Works "Mask
Work" means a series of related images, however fixed
or encoded, having or representing the redetermined, three-dimensional
pattern of metallic, insulating or semiconductor material
present or removed from the layers of a semiconductor chip
product; and in which series the relation of the images to
one another is that each image has the pattern of the surface
of one form of the semiconductor chip product. Mask works
are a relatively new form of intellectual property. Recognizing
the unique nature of semiconductors and the semiconductor
industry, Congress enacted the Semiconductor Protection Act
of 1984 to protect the masks and other information, e.g.,
mask databases, used to manufacture semiconductor chip products.
The term of protection for a mask work extends for a maximum
of ten years from the earliest date that the mask work is
either (1) registered; or (2) exploited commercially anywhere
in the world.
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Patents serve
as agreements between the government and an inventor whereby,
in exchange for the inventor's complete disclosure of an invention,
the government gives the inventor the right to exclude others
from making, using, or selling the invention (e.g., a process,
machine, composition of matter, articles of manufacture.) Patent
rights are granted in the name(s) of the inventor(s) and may
be assigned by contract. A patent does not give the inventor
the right to practice his invention—only the right to
exclude others from doing so. Protection begins when the application
is received by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
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Trademark establish
a unique expression to identify the source of goods or services
for commercial purposes (e.g., a word, symbol, or a combination
thereof). Trademark registration can be obtained from the federal
government and often from state governments.
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