It is designed to give companies an
overview of the type of material commonly found in these documents, and a baseline for
moving toward an official version for their own needs. It is also biased heavily toward the
American legal system; since every country??™s laws vary, it is beyond the scope of this book
to address international law.
Intellectual property
There are three different avenues for companies and individuals in the United States to
protect their intellectual property: copyright, trademarks, and patents. Copyright and
trademarks are directly related to the Web, patents less so except if the thing being
patented is a new type of technology that affects how the Web is actually used. Most companies
do not mention patents anywhere on their site unless to display the patent number
under which their product is protected.
Trademarks are used to protect logos, unique elements, phrases, and official names that
have sufficient distinctive character by which the government recognizes the concept as
being unique and wholly owned by the company. Typically, logos and other distinctive
branding elements are trademarked??”for instance, the Coca-Cola Company not only owns
the trademark to the word Coca-Cola and its logo, but also to the design of the famous
contoured bottle and the phrase ???Make Every Drop Count.
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