Copyright, Trademarks, and Patents; oh my! (was Re: [Clipart] Inclusion of copyrighted logo in your library)

[Bryce Harrington]

It's good to see all the discussion on this topic, and to hear we're all
pretty much on the same page with this issue.  I'm noticing some
terminology confusions, though, and want to bring attention to the
differences of the terms.

Note that I'm no lawyer, and may get some of the details wrong, so
please do additional research if you're interested in learning the
precise meanings.

First, I think most of us are familiar with what a copyright is.  It is
a protection of your personal representation of some idea.  In most
countries you automatically gain copyright over whatever you create.  We
know about the differences between a copyrighted work put under a
license like GPL, and Public Domain.  A copyright is very tied to the
artist's hand - if you and I draw pictures of the same vase of flowers,
we each get separate copyrights for our work.  Copyrights do not apply
for very trivial things like a single word or a green circle.

Trademarks are very different.  Trademarks do not come automatically;
you must register with the government to get them.  Also, unlike
copyrights you must defend them in order to keep them.  Trademarks are
often on very simple things like a single word or on very simple
imagery.  Trademarks are also contextual - One person could trademark
the word "Apple" as pertaining to music recording, and someone else
could trademark it in the context of computer equipment.  Trademarks are
independent of the artists hand; it doesn't matter who draws the Apple
logo, it's the "idea" of the Apple logo that's protected, not the
specific representation.

Patents are completely different from either of these two things.  They
protect specific ideas, rather than a particular person's representation
of the idea.  They aren't really intended for use with artistic work, so
they're pretty orthogonal to what we're doing.

Note that each of the above also have different term lengths.
Copyrights tend to have really long terms (usually at least a human
lifespan), and on the other end, patents can be as short as 15 years.  

Often, you'll hear the above three concepts grouped into the generic
term "Intellectual Property".  However, this is considered a bad term,
because it confuses the distinctions between the different categories,
and wrongly implies that intangible ideas are ownable in the same
fashion as tangible things like a television set or a warehouse.  It's
better to know the difference between copyrights, trademarks, and
patents, and use the correct term for whatever is being talked about.

Anyway, again, this is just a thumbnail sketch of what all these terms
mean, and I'm probably glossing over some really important issues.
Hopefully this gives a rough idea of the differences, and you can see
Wikipedia or other sources for more complete details.

Bryce