Copyright Attorney – Patent Office

Copyrights are simply proprietary and exclusivity claims to works of authorship similar to a patent. The types of works that may be copyrighted include songs, novels, plays, poems, paintings, choreography, films, and audio recordings. Basically, any body-of-work or endeavor of an artistic or literary nature.

The 1976 Copyright Act helped establish the kinds of material that fall under the protection of this law. A brief amendment in 1978 added architectural works to the subject matter that is protected by this act. There is no limit to the amount of material a person or entity may register. Works covered by this law are understood to be intellectual property belonging to a person or entity.

An attorney that specializes in the field of Copyright Law is essential when consulting for registration or infringement claims and/or all related litigation. Consulting a Copyright Attorney will not only save you time and money, an attorney specializing in Intellectual Property Law will assist you in registering your body-of-work as well as help you determine whether your registered material has been unfairly used, transferred, or published.

This type of litigation is a very serious and stressful ordeal to go through alone. A Copyright Attorney can help you if you have been a victim of infringement or accused of plagiarizing someone else’s work.

Copyright misuse is a topic that comes up frequently in intellectual property litigation. This kind of litigation often arises when attempting to determine whether the owner of registered material has used the work lawfully or adequately applied the rights and restrictions afforded to them.

Copyrights can be transferred between entities or individuals. To transfer registered material, the entity or individual that owns the rights must create and sign a contract validating the transference of the restricted material since there is no official form for the transference of registered works. Whether, the entire body-of-work or a portion of the exclusive material under the protection of intellectual property laws will be transferred is left up to the discretion of the parties involved in the transaction.

The exclusivity right of material begins at the creation of the body-of-work and lasts until seventy (70) years after the death of the creator. Works-for-hire fall under different exclusivity protection within intellectual property laws. For works-for-hire, the duration of copyright ranges from ninety-five (95) years starting from the date of publication, to, one-hundred-and-twenty (120) years from the date of creation of the work, if the author is revealed and validated.