| Restoration from Public Domain |
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| A provision for the restoration of foreign works from public domain status in the United States was included in the 1994 Uruguay Round Agreements Act. The provision went into effect on January 1, 1996, and applies to members of the Berne Convention, members of the World Trade Organization, and countries specifically extended protection by presidential proclamations.More... |
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| Copyright Infringement and Plagiarism |
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| A copyright holder has the exclusive rights to reproduce, display, transmit, perform, and modify a work as well as the right to publicly perform a sound recording by digital transmission. There are exemptions in the Copyright Act that provide for certain exceptions to those exclusive rights, many in favor of limited nonprofit educational purposes. If none of the exemptions apply, the proposed use of someone else's copyrighted work will probably be copyright infringement. If proper attribution is required and is missing, the proposed use will also be plagiarism. Copyright laws prohibit plagiarism.More... |
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| Provisional Patent Applications |
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| For many years, there was only one type of patent application, which required the submission of a specification, which is a detailed description of the invention; a claim or claims, which delineate the specific aspects of the invention for which patent protection is sought; any necessary drawings; an oath or declaration that the inventor believes him or herself to be the original and first inventor of the invention; and the filing fee. In 1994, the Uruguay round of negotiations on the General Agreements on Tariffs and Trade, commonly known as "GATT," resulted in the formation of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), to which the United States became a member and signatory, respectively. TRIPS requires that WTO members provide strong intellectual property rights and, in the context of patents, provide foreign inventors with access to their patent systems and the full protection of their patent laws. One important aspect of TRIPS was that a foreign inventor could establish a priority date in other TRIPS-member countries upon the filing of a patent application in his or her own country as long as a regular patent application was filed within the TRIPS-member country within a certain amount of time. More... |
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| Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998 |
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| Part of the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works of 1886 provided that copyrighted works be protected for the duration of the author's life plus no less than 50 years. The European Union extended the 50 year protection to 70 years in 1993, and the United States did the same on October 28, 1998, with the signing of the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act (CTEA). CTEA allows works still under copyright in the United States to be granted copyright protection for the duration of the author's life plus 70 years for individual works and corporate works. Works published before January 1, 1978, are protected for up to 95 years. Works-for-hire, anonymous, or pseudonymous works are protected for 95 years after publication or 120 years after creation under CTEA. The Act is named after the now-deceased songwriter and singer Sonny Bono, who had lobbied for copyright extension. CTEA is also known as the "Mickey Mouse Act" because one of the biggest proponents of the bill was the Disney company. CTEA does not retroactively apply to works for which copyright protection had expired as of October 28, 1998.More... |
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| Regional Patent Offices |
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| The issuance of a patent by the United States Patent and Trademark Office provides patent protection to an inventor only within the United States. Because each country has its own patent laws, other countries do not provide patent protection to a U.S. patentee, nor does the United States provide patent protection to a foreign patentee. Originally, if a U.S. inventor wished to obtain patent protection in other countries, he or she was required to obtain patents from each country in which patent protection was desired, which obviously entailed substantial time and expense. Eventually, however, international cooperation helped streamline the process of obtaining patents in other countries in many cases.More... |
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