How do i go about doing so. I'm trying to come out with my own clothing line and came up with a nice name/designs etc with my cpu skills, so applied it together. Just want to know what all I have to do to copyright my work, and names i come out with to put out on market. Thanks.
First you will need a lot of money to file it. Second you will need even more money to prosecute. About $10K is what you need to patent it properly. There are companies advertized on TV that will sponsor you. (1-800-got-idea or smth like that) This is normally done by companies so they can use it in legal battles against each other. I remember a friend was telling me his company makes navigation systems for cars, and had to change the blinking of the : sign in the timer from 60 times/sec to 59 times/sec because their competitor had a patent on "blinking 60 times/sec for a timer in navigation system". Current patent system sucks. It needs to be simplified.
No, no, no you don't want to use those companies. While some are legit, there are many out there that either just take your money, or get you a patent that isn't worth the paper it's written on. Read this for more details: http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/alerts/invnalrt.htm The other thing to consider is that it takes a long time to get a patent. Fashion will have long moved on before a design patent ever issues. Note that you can copyright patterns for your design, but you won't be able to copyright the clothing itself. There was a bill introduced by congress in March 2006 to try to change that (the "Design Piracy Prevention Act"). It was not enacted into law, however. Here is a relevant law blog post about litigation over copying a shoe design: http://prawfsblawg.blogs.com/prawfsblawg/2006/09/when_is_a_shoe_.html There is more here: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=878401 [Note that this is U.S. law. In Europe and the rest of the world, the laws are probably different.] How can you protect yourself? - Trademark your business name - You can copyright novel fabric designs. See: http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ40a.html - Make sure your designs come out first!