The Internet and Intellectual Property: Avoiding Pitfalls on the Information Superhighway

 Companies worldwide are focusing their attention on the Internet for advertising, communication and commerce. The "information superhighway," however, raises numerous intellectual property pitfalls, most of which can be avoided through advance planning. This paper addresses how to protect your company's "domain name," and addresses important trademark, copyright, and other intellectual property issues related to the Internet and the creation of the World Wide Web home pages.

Within the last several years, the growing popularity of the Internet has generated a host of cutting-edge intellectual property issues. The Internet is a vast, cooperative, global network connecting thousands of public and private computer systems around the world. Although an estimated 50 million people use the Internet worldwide, there is no central enforcement agency, making protection of intellectual property on the Internet a unique challenge.