Widgets Inc. wishes to protect its logo from unauthorized use. Which of the following will protect the logo and ensure that others cannot copy and use it?

A.
Patent

B.
Copyright

C.
Trademark

D.
Trade secret law

Explanation:
C: Intellectual property can be protected by several different laws, depending upon the type of resource it is. A trademark is used to protect a word,
name, symbol, sound, shape, color, or combination of thesesuch as a logo. The reason a company would trademark one of these, or a combination, is
that it represents their company (brand identity) to a group of people or to the world. Companies have marketing departments that work very hard in coming
up with something new that will cause the company to be noticed and stand out in a crowd of competitors, and trademarking the result of this work with a
government registrar is a way of properly protecting it and ensuring others cannot copy and use it.
A is incorrect because a patent covers an invention, whereas a trademark protects a word, name, symbol, sound, shape, color, or combination thereof.
Patents are given to individuals or companies to grant them legal ownership of, and enable them to exclude others from using or copying, the invention
covered by the patent. The invention must be novel, useful, and not obvious. A patent is the strongest form of intellectual property protection.
B is incorrect because in the United States, copyright law protects the right of an author to control the public distribution, reproduction, display, and
adaptation of his original work. The law covers many categories of work: pictorial, graphic, musical, dramatic, literary, pantomimes, motion picture,
sculptural, sound recording, and architectural. Copyright law does not cover the specific resource. It protects the expression of the idea of the resource
instead of the resource itself. A copyright law is usually used to protect an author’s writings, an artist’s drawings, a programmer’s source code, or specific
rhythms and structures of a musician’s creation.
D is incorrect because trade secret law protects certain types of information or resources from unauthorized use or disclosure. For a company to have its
resource qualify as a trade secret, the resource must provide the company with some type of competitive value or advantage. A trade secret can be
protected by law if developing it requires special skill, ingenuity, and/or expenditure of money and effort.