Labor Day – a U.S. federal holiday celebrated on the first Monday in September – is associated with the unofficial end of summer vacation and BBQ parties.
While the origin of Labor Day in the United States is associated with labor unions, there is a dispute as to who first proposed a holiday to honor workers. One camp sides with Peter J. McGuire, a co-founder of the American Federation of Labor, while another camp favors Matthew Maguire, a secretary of New York’s Central Labor Union. The U.S. Department of Labor acknowledges that it is unclear, noting that it was Peter J. McGuire who stood before the New York Central Labor Union in May 1882, to suggest the idea of setting aside one day a year to honor labor. However, after President Grover Cleveland signed into law the creation of a national Labor Day in 1894, there were editorials referred to Matthew Maguire as the “Father of the Labor Day holiday.”
What a neat and useless factoid, but what does Labor Day have to do with IP you may ask?
President Lincoln was our only president to hold a U.S. patent and was a large supporter of the expansion of protection for intellectual property rights. In a 1858 lecture on “Discoveries and Inventions,” Lincoln stated, “Man is not the only animal who labors; but he is the only one who improves his workmanship. This improvement, he effects by Discoveries, and Inventions.”
What happens after one of your client companies affects a discovery or invention? How do its workers (the inventors) avoid a “Who done it?” fate similar to the disputed Labor Day “founders?”
Here is a quick primer for those who create to ensure that they secure their IP rights, whether those rights are patent, trademark or copyright rights.
Filing and Registration
Patents. A new and non-obvious product, machine, chemical composition (or related methods) should be protected by filing for a patent with the U.S. Patent Office. The legal protection afforded to an inventor upon filing and once a patent grants may allow an inventor to work with others to commercialize and sell the patented invention. If granted, a patent will allow its owner to exclude others from making, using, or selling the claimed invention without authorization from the patent owner.
Trademarks. Trademarks are symbols, designs, terms, or phrases which serve to identify the source of a good or service and are a pivotal part of marketing and identity for brands. These images and words help sellers connect with customers quickly and effectively to convey messages about a brand and its associated goods/services. If your client is using brands to sell its goods or services, registration of each of those trademarks with the US Trademark Office is strongly recommended in order to prevent others from using the same or similar marks to deceive or confuse consumers (or to prevent others from stopping your client from using a trademark after it has already invested in beginning its use).
Copyrights. Protecting tangible and intangible creative works in the United States can include registering those creative works with the U.S. Copyright Office. While your client may own the copyright in the work as soon as the work is created, registration with the U.S. Copyright office allows for a presumption of ownership of that work and in the event of a legal dispute, provides significant legal presumptions and advantages for your client to assert infringement in federal court. This form of protection is particularly advantageous where your client creates original works of literature, music, art, or software.
Each September, we should reflect on Lincoln’s 1858 words which still ring true as we honor the work of laborers in our country. We would do well to remind all of the workers that the “combination of labor with cultivated thought” can (and usually does) lead to the “discovery of anything which is at once new and valuable.”
