Vanderbilt's Commercialization Process: Protection
There are various forms of intellectual property – patents, copyrights, and trademarks being the most common. Patent protection is available for new and useful processes, machines, articles of manufacture, and compositions of matter. Patents provide protection in the form of a limited monopoly to an invention, but are also expensive, more complicated to obtain, and have a limited lifetime in comparison to other forms of protection. Copyright protection covers creative expressions put into tangible form, such as computer software, books, journal articles, sound recordings, video recordings, works of art, and other forms of creative works. The cost of copyright protection is typically quite low and has a fairly long lifetime, but provides limited protection. Other forms of protection, such as trade secrets, trademarks, service marks, trade dress, and mask works are not as often employed in an academic setting. CTTC will work with the inventors to determine the best form of protection for the invention during the Evaluation process.
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