You've worked hard to create it. Now copyright it.

Usually, determining whether something can be copyrighted is easy. Books, movies, and songs are copyrightable. Artistic drawings, paintings and photographs are also copyrightable. When you start moving towards more technical works and drawings, it can become a little trickier.

Generally speaking, drawings, photographs, and other two-dimensional and three-dimensional expressions that visually depict three-dimensional objects are copyrightable. At the Trademark USP, we can help you copyright your:

• Written work such as fiction, nonfiction, poetry, textbooks, reference works or articles
• Directories or catalogs, advertising copy
• Computer programs
• Website or online materials
• Photograph
• Art Work
• Maps
• Technical Drawings
• Recorded performance of music or sound
• Written music & Lyrics, Screenplay or script
• A Choreographic work
• A recorded score for a movie or play
• Feature film, documentary film, animated film, television show, video, or other Audi-Visual Work

The law in the United States provides that you are granted a copyright in your work the minute you create it regardless of whether you register your work.

Assuming your work is original and has a basic amount of creativity, you may claim ownership and protection. The problem is without registering, you have an incomplete form of protection in that you cannot enforce your rights in a court of law in America.

This is a common question, as each protects a different type of intellectual property:

• A trademark generally protects a word, phrase, symbol and/or design that distinguishes the source of the goods — what we think of as brand name and brand recognition.
• A patent generally protects an invention, including the functionality or design, or in other words, “any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof.” 35 U.S.C. § 101.
• Copyrights, meanwhile, generally protect artistic works such as books, photographs, arts, movies and music.

While you do not have to register your work in order to receive copyright protection, registration will guarantee you several additional protections including:

• The ability to file a lawsuit: If your work is not registered with the copyright office, you cannot file suit for copyright infringement.
• Statutory damages: If not timely filed, you cannot sue for statutory damages. You would therefore have to prove that someone’s copying of your work caused you actual damages that you can calculate and tie to the infringement of the other person. (more on this below)
• Protection from imported infringing copies: Registration also allows you to record the registration with the U.S. Customs Service for protection against the importation of infringing copies.
• Firm claim of ownership: Registration makes it more difficult for infringers to argue that they were unaware of their infringement as it acts as a notice to everyone that you own the copyright.
• Image of Establishment: In some industries (such as film scripts), registration of copyright is a prerequisite to get some people (like agents) to take you seriously.

There are a number of different categories (also known as an International Classes or Nice Classifications) that can be used to identify particular goods or services. The USPTO has developed a pre-determined list of trademark categories from which to choose.

It may be helpful to register a mark within multiple classes (for example a company that operates a restaurant chain (Class 043) and sells items in grocery stores using the restaurant's name (Class 030)). Bear in mind that there is a USPTO filing fee for each selected category.

Before picking a category, it may be helpful to decide if you are selling a good (generally physical items like nuts, bolts, beer) or a service (generally activities such as legal, consulting, or accounting). The selection is important because a registered trademark generally protects only the category listed in the application.

Broad categories may provide more protection, but if the category does not accurately fit the applied for good or service, the registration could be invalidated. Also, changing the class designation can be difficult and require an additional filing fee.

Bear in mind that a company name and particular product names may each be trademarked separately and may each involve different categories. Each registration would require the payment of additional fees to the USPTO.

Tips for Picking the Right Category

• Determine whether you are selling a good or service.
• Try to be as accurate as possible because filing in the wrong class can be the basis of a rejection by the USPTO.
• Pick the most accurate category from the USPTO list. These are all included on the drop-down menu on the Trademark USP website.
• Review the published information about categories, you can read here: WIPO's Nice Classifications
• Focus on the finished product to the consumer and not on the ingredients that go into the goods or service.
• Focus on what is actually sold to consumers and not extra things like the fact that employees may have shirts or hats with the company logo.
• Don’t think about the packaging. A fruit seller probably doesn’t sell paper goods just because its logo appears on the packaging that comes with the fruit.
• Although more expensive, some companies file under more than one category when they sell multiple products.

In most cases, a copyright lasts for the life of the author plus 70 years. If the author of the work died in 2070, then the copyright, in most situations, would last until 2140.

For works made for hire, and for anonymous and pseudonymous works, the duration of copyright is the shorter of:

• 95 years from publication
• 120 years from creation