Frequently Asked Questions

I think I’ve exhausted the material in this website.  Where can I learn even more about intellectual property?

Where you’ll look depends a lot on what you’re trying to learn.

If you’re trying to get a handle on the basics, so that you can better understand some of the kinds of intellectual property legal issues that may be important to your business (or to a new idea you have in mind), this website may well provide all of the basic information you’ll need to position you for an effective consultation with an intellectual property attorney.  There is a surprising amount of information in this site, so take your time looking around.

If, instead, you’re convinced you’ve exhausted all of the material on this website (and you’re still hungry for more!), there are numerous primary and secondary resources you can call upon.

Primary resources include the intellectual property laws themselves, such as: (a) Title 35 of the United States Code (for patents); (b) Title 17 of the United States Code (for copyrights); and (c) Title 15 of the United States Code (for trademarks).  Fully annotated copies of these statutes may be found at most large public libraries and certainly at the vast majority of even small- to medium-sized law libraries.

Secondary resources abound.  These include multi-volume legal treatises, law school textbooks, and legal periodicals devoted to the law generally and to intellectual property specifically.  Paying a visit to your local law school (and the law school bookstores located nearby) can yield a wealth of resources (available at varying costs).

A listing of other resources is included in this website.  However, when questions arise about the meaning of the materials you peruse, and the applicability of those materials to a specific intellectual property legal problem at hand, there is simply no substitute for consulting a good licensed intellectual property attorney.