Copyright Law in Shreveport, LA

Any business from Shreveport can benefit from the city’s generous incentives. Also, local organizations dedicated themselves to helping you grow your brand. However, what legal protections do you need to procure to protect yourself from infringement?

Copyrights and trademarks are only as effective as the veracity of their enforcement allows them to be. If you have concerns about approaching this task, it’s worth seeking the help of an attorney.

What Is Copyright Registration?

Copyright registration offers the author of a piece of work in Shreveport, Louisiana some protection from those who try to steal their idea.

A novel creation receives copyright protection when it becomes fixed into a tangible form. Copyright law dictates how to establish this ownership. Additionally, it explains how to register intellectual property or defend against infringement.

Copyright registration is a type of public record for ownership. A piece of work doesn’t require copyright registration for protection under the US copyright law. However, you should register your product in Shreveport, LA with the help of a copyright lawyer, as this can offer you several unique advantages:

• Protects your work against the importation of copies that infringe the registration. Your registration will be recorded with the United States Customs and Border Protection.
• If your work is already registered in the United States, you can proceed with an infringement lawsuit; otherwise, you will have to register it first.
• The IP owner can seek damages and attorney fees if a copyright registration happens within three months of publication (or prior to an infringement claim).
• If a copyrighted work becomes registered outside of the three-month time frame, you may seek actual damages that you lost.
• Copyright registration will identify each public record of its existence. This action puts the copyright protection into public notice for the piece of work that you’ve created and/or own.

What Is a Trademark?

A trademark is a word, symbol, design, or phrase that distinguishes you from another company. Service marks are a type of trademark that a company will use when providing services to the public. Technically, trademarks are a form of intellectual property. It also forms part of the company’s brand, even if they no longer use it.

Here are some of the components that established Shreveport, LA business people and brand owners often trademark:

• Logos
• Symbols
• Product packages
• Name of the business
• Name of the product or service
• Designs

The Louisiana Secretary of State accepts applications from Shreveport businesses to register a trademark. There is a $75 filing fee, and you can pay up to $50 for expedited service. Assuming that your mark received approval, you can defend it through civil action for the next ten years.

How Long Does It Take to Register a Trademark and Copyright?

Completing each phase of the USPTO trademark process usually takes over a year. Unfortunately, there is no guarantee that a company from Shreveport will register their mark during this time. As a result, having an attorney with expertise can be indispensable to your overall success. They can handle avoiding mistakes that lead to immense delays like:

• Assigning an incorrect party to take ownership of the trademark

• Ignoring the identifications from the USPTO ID Manual

• Employing terms considered to be too generic to receive a protected mark

• Sending responses to issues raised by an examining attorney

• Presenting an application that conflicts with previous registrations

While working with the Copyright Office can be problematic, the latency tends to be far less. By and large, their registration specialists move through cases in three and a half months.

What’s the Difference Between a Trademark and a Copyright?

The value of your Shreveport, LA business depends on the assets it owns. It’s important to note that the most valuable assets are not always physical or financial. Your intellectual property counts as assets too. Due to this, if people use those assets without your permission, you can file a lawsuit for infringement.

While trademarks and copyrights protect intellectual property, they cover two different aspects. Copyright registration protects artistic and literary works, such as videos and books. A trademark registration protects brand components. This can be a jingle, a logo, or a mascot of your organization.

Take, for example, if you own a magazine publishing company. You would trademark the logo and the name of your company. However, you would also place copyright protection on all the magazines that you have published.

Work With an Experienced Shreveport, Louisiana Copyright Lawyer

Do you have an idea that needs protection under intellectual property law? If so, complete the registration process as soon as possible. There is always the risk that someone else might beat you to it. This eventuality can create complications when the time comes to defend IP rights claims.

An experienced Shreveport, LA copyright lawyer can help you uncover if anyone else has registered a similar idea. If your concept closely resembles another, it might get rejected. Consequently, it is better to find this early than to go through the process only to get denied later. In addition, an intellectual property lawyer will help you to draft critical documents. Or, they can determine the value of the intellectual property that you own.

An intellectual property lawyer also assesses the quality of the assets. They will also look at the number of assets licensed under your name or your business in Shreveport, LA. This evaluation can help to maximize the entire value of all intangible assets that your company has.

Are you ready to tap into our network of Shreveport copyright attorneys  that can guide you through every step? We can even help you connect with an attorney across Louisiana state lines. 

Submit a request online or call us today at (866) 345-6784 to get in touch with an experienced lawyer in your area!