We had a lunch and learn at work yesterday on patents, copyrights, trademarks, and trade secrets.

A distinction was made between:

1. patents, which are inventions
   • a request for a patent to the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) must be filled within one year of a submission to the public
   • software wasn't considered patentable until the 1990s, but... now it is
   • "Patented" or "Patent Pending" are the legalese callouts that decorate applicable copy surrounding this intellectual property
   • patents may be of:
     1. processes
     2. machines
     3. composition of matter
     4. articles of manufacture
2. copyrights, which are works of authorship
   • © denotes a copyright in paperwork officialesqueness
3. trademarks, which are brands or product names
   • legalese callouts that decorate applicable copy surrounding this intellectual property:
     1. ® is for registered trademarks
     2. ™ is for trademarks which may one day be officially registered (me remembers from a college class on trademark law that one may trademark applicable brands or product names "on their own" without any form of paperwork filing or red tape process navigation and what is more an assumed trademark exists for creations in this flavor of IP and if a violation of the trademark occurs significant ammunition to argue a case for trademark violation lays in the hands of the abused party)
     3. ℠ is for service marks which are for downloadable software
4. trade secrets, of which an example might be the recipe for making Coca-Cola