Real Estate Journal — Commercial Real Estate Law — August 26 - September 15, 2016 — 7A
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By Joseph Falcon III, Barley Snyder Understanding Intellectual Property
be concerned with it? According to the Unit- e d S t a t e s Patent and Trademark Office (USP- TO), intellec- tual property W
hat is intellectual property and why should I actually
competition from replicating a patented invention, and allow the owner to profit in a variety of ways. Intellectual property, like real property, can be bought, sold, licensed, exchanged, or given away like other forms of property. As a result, it may be strategic for the owner to transfer those rights through assignment or license, which is the functional equivalent of a “sale” and a “lease” under real property. An assignment of a patent, for example, is a transfer of sufficient rights so that the assignee acquires title to the
patent. The assignee becomes the owner and has the same rights that the original owner had. The owner may strategi- cally exploit the intellectual property right by way of as- signing the patent. This may be for a variety of reasons, including under capitaliza- tion or disinterest in the in- vention. However, once the owner transfers the rights to a third party, all rights are then reserved with the third party and exhausted within the assignor. Alternatively, a license is written authorization to use owned intellectual property
rights. Typically, an owner will make arrangements to license intellectual property rights, which authorizes a third party to use those rights in exchange for consideration. However, unlike assignments, the owner retains owner- ship of those rights, and can contract for a running rate of payments. Although there are always uncertainties with product in the market place, a license may have a larger upside than a single assign- ment of rights. Intellectual property rights allow a business to distin- guish their goods and services
amongst competitors. As dis- cussed, a patent owner holds a significant advantage against competitors and a clear ad- vantage in market utilization, since the patent owner can enforce patent rights against those competitors. Therefore, acquiring and managing in- tellectual properties rights, provides the owner with op- portunity to grow, protect, and exploit these rights as commercial value. Joe Falcon is an intel- lectual property, U.S. Pat- ent and Trademark Office registered patent attorney at Barley Snyder. n
Joseph Falcon, III
be considered legal advice, and are not intended to create an attorney-client relationship. This article provides only a very gen- eral overview of an extremely complex area of law, each state having unique nuances and ex- emptions in addition to the lack of uniformity in the laws themselves and the applications thereof. Please consult with your attorney and accountant prior to relying on any information contained herein. Jessica Zolotorofe is an attorney with the law firm of Ansell Grimm&Aaron. n continued from page 6A Controlling Interest Transfer Tax . . . However, it should be noted that this right is an exclusion- ary right, which allows the owner to exclude others from making, using, selling and importing what is protected. That’s right, a patent does not provide the right to make, use, sell or import what is protected by the patent, but rather lets you exclude others. That said, this exclusionary right is very important, since a patent can be used to deter is “ownership of a dream, an idea, an improvement, an emotion that we can touch, see, hear, and feel. It is an as- set just like your home, your car, or your bank account.” Both intellectual property and real property can create wealth. Inventions and se- crets have real value consider- ing the laws governing intel- lectual property provide own- ers’ rights therewith. This in return provides an edge over competitors. In the United States, intellectual property is broken down into patents, trademarks, copyrights and trade secrets (considering the patents are most alike to real property). A patent is a right to a lim- ited monopoly granted by the government in an invention that is unique or novel, or a non-obvious development or improvement of an existing technology.
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