Lawyer's Brief: Making our mark

More than pleasure, fame, or fortune, man wants to leave his “mark” on the world. In fact if you Google this term, you will find hundreds if not thousands of self help books and articles on how to achieve self worth and how to leave your “mark.”

Even New York law understands and recognizes this innate desire as intellectual property rights of inventors, authors and businessmen are protected by patents, copyrights, and trademarks.

While this area of the law is very technical and highly complicated, there is one guiding principle. In fact, if I were writing a book entitled Intellectual Property Law for Dummies, my book would be short and sweet. “Ideas” I would explain, are not protected under the law, only how you use your ideas. In other words, ideas by themselves are worthless, until you make “something with them” that is both “yours” and “unique.” That my friend is about six months of intellectual property law in two sentences.