"Intellectual property" covers four different kinds of right. Each protects something different, comes from a different place and lasts a different length of time. Choosing the wrong one wastes money, and missing one can leave a gap.
1. Trademark: your brand
Protects the name, logo or slogan that tells customers a product or service comes from you. Rights come from using the mark in commerce, and federal registration with the USPTO makes those rights nationwide and much easier to enforce. A trademark can last indefinitely, as long as you keep using it and file the maintenance paperwork. This is the part LaunchTime IP works on.
2. Copyright: your creative work
Protects original works of authorship such as writing, art, photography, music, video and software code. Protection is automatic once the work is fixed in a tangible form, but registering with the U.S. Copyright Office is what makes statutory damages and attorney's fees available against infringers. It lasts for the author's life plus 70 years.
3. Patent: how something works, or how it looks
A utility patent protects a new, useful and non-obvious invention (a device, process, method or functional improvement) for 20 years. A design patent protects the ornamental appearance of a product for 15 years. The USPTO grants patents only after a detailed examination. They are the most expensive and technical form of IP, and the deadlines are strict: in the U.S. you generally must file within one year of any public disclosure, and most other countries require filing before any disclosure. A registered patent attorney or agent handles this work.
4. Trade secret: what you keep confidential
Protects confidential business information that gives you an advantage, such as a formula, recipe, method, algorithm or customer list. There is no registration and no expiry date. Protection lasts as long as the information stays secret, and it depends on how you guard it: NDAs, confidentiality clauses and limits on who has access. Disclosing it publicly, including in a patent, ends the protection.
Where they overlap
Most products involve more than one. A logo can be both a trademark and a copyrighted work. Software is covered by copyright (the code), possibly by a patent (a new function), and by trademark (its name). A distinctive product shape can be protected by a design patent and, as "trade dress," by trademark law. So it is usually worth asking which combination applies to you.
If you are not sure where your idea fits, the two-minute quiz will point you in the right direction.