Many programmers and web page designers think that intellectual property laws need to change to accommodate the web. The reality of the situation is that the web will be conformed to fit the current laws since the existing laws already do a pretty good job of protecting the current owners of intellectual property. Therefore, the constraints on web page designers will continue to increase as large companies begin to enforce their rights more aggressively. While everyone has heard of cyber-squatting cases and the proprietary technology uses to track unauthorized photos on the web, few web designers take a proactive approach to identifying and protecting their intellectual property or the intellectual property rights of their clients before their sites go live. The following paragraphs provide a view brief introduction to the various types of intellectual property in the United States, the amount of protection each affords and the amount of damages that can be incurred from infringing those rights.
Copyright law protects any original work of authorship fixed in a tangible medium. While this area of law has traditionally protected literary works and art work, it also protects modern technology as well. Software, including the text-based HTML code used in web sites, can be copyrighted. Even databases, like those used to automatically generate data requests, can be protected. While copyright laws protect a work as soon as it is fixed in a tangible medium of expression, formally registering a work provides additional enforcement rights and greater recoverable damages for the author. For a small initial investment, copyright law will protect an original work from the moment of creation through the life of the author plus 70 years. If a corporation owns the material under the 'work-for-hire' doctrine, the work is protected for 95 years from the time it was published or 120 years from the date it was created, whichever is shorter. These extended terms were signed into law by the President on October 27, 1998. Damages for willful copyright infringement can exceed tens of thousands of dollars and years of incarceration for each offense. A trademark can be just about anything that can identify a good or service including names, logos and designs. Trademark law protects the goodwill of a business by protecting items that indicate the source of the goods or services. While the law normally protects logos and trade names, its coverage has expanded to include distinctive packaging, original product designs and even sounds. Once a mark is registered, the owner can use Federal law to prevent anyone else from using the mark for as long as the mark is maintained properly. Using the registered trademark of another company can subject the infringer to a wide range of damages depending on how the infringer misappropriated the trademark. Patent law is the Microsoft of intellectual property rights. A patent is one of the few governmentally recognized monopolies allowed in the United States. Patent law gives strong protection for new and useful machines, methods and articles of manufacture including new and useful inventions embodied in software. In exchange for telling the world how to build something, the inventor is given the exclusive right to make, use, sell, or practice the invention for 20 years from the filing date of the patent application. While patents require a greater financial outlay, the value and strength of a properly drafted patent cannot be overestimated. Patents relating to the Internet have generated a lot of attention in the media. For example, patents such as SightSound's patent potentially covers any commercial transmission of digital audio over the Internet. Knowingly infringing such a patent can subject the infringer to liability for three times the patent owners actual damages.

