Patents, trademarks, servicemarks, and copyrights are often referred to as “intellectual property”, and as a reporter you have to be careful to respect the rights of the owner of the intellectual property.  Kleenex is a trademarked name for tissue; Xerox is a trademarked name for photocopiers; and so on.

Reporters don’t usually get involved in issues involving patents, but it’s useful to know what trademarks, servicemarks, and copyrights are.

A trademark is a symbol, name, word, or device used in business to indicate the source of goods, and to distinguish them from the goods of others.  A servicemark is essentially the same as a trademark, except it’s used to identify the source of a service rather than a product.

Copyright is a form of protection provided to the authors of original works, including literary, artistic, dramatic, musical, and other intellectual works and ideas, both published and unpublished.