Upstate Employers Network (UEN) in conjunction with McNair Law Firm, P.A. is pleased to announce a new intellectual property information service for its members, an intellectual property series for Upstate employers. What is intellectual property and how does it impact the day-to-day activities of employers and their employees? This series will cover this question and more.

Most employers may not have an intellectual property (IP) department. Thus, intellectual property stewardship and management, like other sundry tasks, falls on the shoulders of the employers' Human Resources (HR) personnel. In order for HR to know how to best protect IP, we need to explain and define IP.

Intellectual property can be summarized into two broad categories:

• Publicly Known intellectual property; and
• Private intellectual property

Publicly Known intellectual property includes:

• Patents;
• Trademarks, and
• Copyright

Private intellectual property includes:

• Trade secrets

To read the full article by Doug Lineberry, click here (part 1) and here (part 2).