A United States patent grants its owner an exclusive right to make, use and sell his invention within the United States. That is, a person can be restrained from manufacturing the invention in the United States (although the invention can be manufactured in another country unless a patent is obtained there also). If the invention is manufactured in another country, a person cannot bring it into the United States because he cannot use it here. Nor can he import it for sale in the United States. One who infringes on a patent subjects himself to losses incurred by the patent owner, including three times the patent owner’s lost profits. 

Recent court decisions have ruled that business processes are now available as being no different than any other method that produces a new and useful result. Design patents are available to protect the artistic nature of a device whose primary element is functional.

A trade secret is any information maintained confidential that is generally not available to persons not required to maintain the information confidential. It may include business approaches and information, customer lists, inventions or technology in development, formulations, technology "know-how," and generally any information that might give a company a competitive advantage. A trade secret is lost when the secret information becomes available to the public, and a person is liable for improperly disclosing information entrusted to the person.

Unlike a patent, whose existence begins by a grant from United States Patent and Trademark Office, and a trademark, whose existence begins by its use in commerce, a copyright exists from the moment it is created without registration or use. There are advantages in registering with the Copyright Office, however. For example, before a copyright can be enforced, it must be first registered, and statutory damages and attorney fees may be awarded only for acts of infringement after registration. Only actual damages, which might be insignificant, can be awarded for infringement activity before registration.

The owner of a copyright is generally the person that created a work except when the person was employed, in which case the work must be assigned to the employer, and except for selected works, when the work was created by a consultant working under a written contract that grants ownership to an entity other than the consultant, making it a "work made for hire."

A copyright grants to its owner the exclusive right to copy or reproduce a creative work. A copyright may be granted on works of art whose primary element is not functional, including sculptures, paintings, photographs, designs, recordings, software and writings.

A term or graphic becomes a trademark through its use in commerce as an indicator of the supplier of goods or services to which it is attached or closely associated. Until it is used as a trademark, that is a product or service associated with the mark is sold in and actual transaction, it does not obtain trademark status. Trademark status is obtained through use; it does not become a trademark by being registered with the United States Patent and Trademark Office but by gaining recognition in the public through use.

A mark may be registered with the Trademark Office after is has been used in an interstate transaction, which gives the federal government jurisdiction, or authority, to grant national trademark status. Once granted, a federal registration grants exclusive use of that trademark throughout the United States regardless of where the mark is actually used, at least with regard to the goods or services with which it was used. If a mark is not used in interstate commerce, one might consider registering the mark within the state it is used.

A mark also may be reserved by filling out an application that indicated that the mark is intended to be used in interstate commerce shortly. The user then must actually give notice to the Trademark Office of interstate use of the mark within six months after the mark is allowed.

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