Robotech has developed a new robotic personal assistant product that combines the best elements of a smartphone, a computer, and a human personal assistant. Once the product is set up, it can book travel, answer calls, prepare and deliver food, and maintain schedules and budgets. Since this is a new product model, Robotech wants to ensure that it is protected from use by any other company. What should Robotech do to accomplish this

Robotech has developed a new robotic personal assistant product that combines the best elements of a smartphone, a computer, and a human personal assistant. Once the product is set up, it can book travel, answer calls, prepare and deliver food, and maintain schedules and budgets. Since this is a new product model, Robotech wants to ensure that it is protected from use by any other company. What should Robotech do to accomplish this?

a) It should establish a brand mark to set its product apart from competitive products.

b) It should get a trademark for the product and register it with the U. S. Patent and Trademark Office.

c) It should give the product a brand name, so customers can identify the real product from any knock - off products. It should release its brand publicly, so customers know that it produced the original product.

d) It should keep this product secret until it is branded and ready to release to the public.

The correct answer is not included in the options above.

Explanation:

The closest answer is B. However trademark is only a symbol, word, or words legally registered or established by use as representing a company or product or service.

If Robotech went with option B, it would be protecting it's trademark not the invention.

The correct step would be for Robotech to protect both it's trademark, and the invention itself using a Patent.

A patent is a government authority or license conferring a right or title to a business and or individual for a set period, especially the sole right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention.

The U. S. Patent and Trademark Office offers Trademark and Patent.

The United States patent law is codified in Title 35 of the United States Code, and authorized by the U. S. Constitution, in Article One, section 8, clause 8, which states:

The Congress shall have power ... To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;

According to the laws of the U. S, a patent is a right granted to the inventor of a (1) process, machine, article of manufacture, or composition of matter, (2) that is new, useful, and non-obvious. A patent serves to prevent and prohibit others from making, using, selling, offering for sale, importing, inducing others to infringe, and/or offering a product specially adapted for practice of the patent.

Patent law is designed to encourage inventors to disclose their new technology to the world by offering the incentive of a limited-time monopoly on the technology. For U. S. utility patents, this limited-time term of patent is 20 years from the earliest patent application filing date (but this term can be extended via patent term adjustment). After the patent term expires, the new technology enters the public domain and is free for anyone to use.

What can be Patented?

The following can be patented:

A device A design e. g Coca-Cola's unique bottle shape. A business method e. g. Amazon's 1-click buying which allows customers to purchase items and have them shipped with one click. A software A formula A process A recipe An Architectural building design

Do note that an idea without details cannot be patented. The Patent Office requires full disclosure of exactly how the solution works in order to determine if the invention requires a patent or not. Without such detail, the idea will be considered not eligible for a patent.