Foster Business Library


Copyright & Trademark Resources


Foster Business Library research guides are aimed at University of Washington students, faculty, and staff, highlighting resources available to them; users not currently affiliated with the university may be unable to access some of these resources.
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Foster Business Library Databases:

The Foster Business Library offers an extensive collection of over fifty databases on its homepage; see under Databases. For a complete list of Foster databases, see the List of All Business Databases. Access to these databases from off campus requires that you first go to the Off-Campus Access button, in the upper right of all library webpages. These resources may not be accessed from off campus except by those with a valid UW Net ID and password. For more information on Foster business databases, click Databases, A-Z. For information on which Foster business databases to use, see the Database Index. For information on accessing Foster databases from off campus, see Database Access. For guidelines on responsible database usage, see Database Usage.

  • LexisNexis Academic Universe:   Go to Legal Research. Under this category, go to Legal News for articles from legal newspapers, magazines and newsletters; go to Law Reviews for articles from law reviews; go to Case Law for federal and state legal cases, decisions from all federal court levels as well as state high court and appellate decisions; go to Codes & Regulations for U.S. federal code, constitution and court rules, federal regulations, agency opinions and attorney general opinions, state statutory laws, court rules and state attorney general opinions; also included in this category are European Union law and the IRS Bulletin and tax regulations.   For an excellent guide to law searching in this database, see Babson College's Tips for Searching Case and Code Law.

    For example, a search for Copyright, in Area of Law By Topic, retrieved a list of over forty documents, searching just in corporate law. See also, under Business, then under Accounting, the full text of the Wiley publication Essentials of Trademarks and Unfair Competition. To find company trademarks, copyrights, and patents, go to the major menu tab for Business, look up the company, and click on the Intellectual Property Information.

  • Congressional Universe:   To find this database, go to Lexis-Nexis Academic Universe and chose Congressional Universe from the left menu. In Congressional Universe, go to Laws for full text access to public laws, Statutes at Large and the United States Code Service; go to Regulations< for full text access to the Federal Register and the Code of Federal Regulations.

    Searching in CIS Index, for instance, for Copyright, for the past two years, produced a list of over twenty documents, hearings, legislative histories, prints and reports.

    Web Resources:

    Unlike library databases, Web resources are available wherever you have web access; they do not require that you access them via the Off-Campus Access button, in the upper right of all library webpages. When using web resources, be sure to evaluate the credibility of these resources. For a subject index to web resources, see Business Resources on the Web on the Foster Business Library homepage.

  • Britannica Online:   This online encyclopedia (restricted to UW users) offers good explanations for many business topics and links to related topics. Search for information in this resource on Copyright and on Trademark. See Copyright and Trademark.

  • Copyright Advisory Network:   The Copyright Advisory Network is a service provided by the American Library Association's Office for Information Technology Policy, designed as a "new way for librarians to learn about copyright and to get help when they have copyright troubles. The purpose of this site is to encourage librarians to discuss copyright questions, and seek out answers. To facilitate this process, we have trained copyright experts who will be monitoring the forums and answering your questions." Registration is required to post questions at this site, which also includes links to more information on copyright for educators.

  • Copyright and Fair Use Issues:   This collection of resources, from a librarian, is focused on the fair use aspect of copyright.

  • Copyright Information for Educators:   This page was created by the University of Washington Libraries for faculty and others on campus needing information on new copyright legislation, copyright basics, copyright in academia, copyright issues, draft copyright guidelines, registering copyrights, obtaining copyright permissions, and internet copyright issues.

  • Copyright Renewal Database:   Based at Stanford University, this "database makes searchable the copyright renewal records received by the US Copyright Office between 1950 and 1993 for books published in the US between 1923 and 1963."

  • Google Patent Search:   "With Google Patent Search, you can now search the full text of the U.S. patent corpus and find patents that interest you. Google Patent Search covers the entire collection of patents made available by the USPTO—from patents issued in the 1790s through those issued in the middle of 2006." See their Advanced Search information.

  • Intellectual Property Law:   This site, maintained by an intellectual property lawyer, is focused on intellectual property law, publications and copyright and patents, with many links to information in this area. See his Copyright Links and Trademark Links.

  • Internet Library of Law and Court Decisions:   This site, maintained by a private law firm, offers extensive summaries of court decisions on the law and the Web, with an index to decisions and decisions collected in about 30 categories including alcohol, gambling, pharmacy, etc. See the sections on Copyright and on Trademark.

  • Legal Information Institute (Cornell University):   The "Law About" section of this organization's homepage organizes the law about a great many topics into an alphabetic sequence by topic, from administrative law through workplace safety. See the sections on Copyright and on Trademark Law.

  • The Practical Realities of the New Copyright Laws:   Text of a presentation at the Modern Language Association Conference in New York City on December 28, 2002 by Duane Webster, Executive Director of the Association of Research Libraries.

  • Section 108 Study Group:   "The Section 108 Study Group is a select committee of copyright experts, convened by the Library of Congress, and charged with updating for the digital world the Copyright Act balance between the rights of creators and copyright owners and the needs of libraries and archives." See their Background Papers for papers and reports discussing copyright issues pertinent to libraries and archives.

  • United States Copyright Office:   The Copyright Office is the office of record where claims to copyright are registered and where documents relating to copyright may be recorded when the requirements of the copyright law are met. The Copyright Office furnishes information about the provisions of the copyright law and the procedures for making registration, explains the operations and practices of the Copyright Office, and reports on facts found in the public records of the Office. The Office's website includes a wealth of information about copyright, including publications, copyright basics, copyright law, international information, and related copyright links. There is also a copyright search engine. Finally, there is a new database covering works that have been registered since 1978, with more than 13 million search terms, providing a faster way to figure out exactly who owns the copyright of any given work that somebody might wish to download or trade online (to help identify who owns copyrights to movies, books and other works).

  • United States Patent and Trademark Office:   "For over 200 years, the basic role of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has remained the same: to promote the progress of science and the useful arts by securing for limited times to inventors the exclusive right to their respective discoveries…" "Through the issuance of patents, the USPTO encourages technological advancement by providing incentives to invent, invest in, and disclose new technology worldwide. Through the registration of trademarks, the agency assists businesses in protecting their investments, promoting goods and services, and safeguarding consumers against confusion and deception in the marketplace." See their Guides and Small Business information.

  • University of Washington Copyright Connection:   This site provides resources for students, researchers, staff, and faculty on copyright law, policies, and guidelines at the University of Washington.

  • University of Washington Engineering Library, Patents and Trademarks:   Information on patents and trademarks, with frequently-asked questions, and sites with trademark information. See also the section on Trademarks vs Trade Names.

  • Wikipedia:   This free online user-created and maintained encyclopedia can be a good starting point for an orientation to a topic. See their entries for Copyright and Trademark.

    Foster Business Library Reference Collection:

    The Foster Business Library Reference Collection consists of business handbooks, encyclopedias, dictionaries, and other quick reference tools. It is located behind the Reference Desk in Foster, arranged by call number. Reference materials cannot be checked out; they may only be used in the library.

  • Encyclopedia of business ethics and society.
    This five-volume reference work includes 900 essays by scholars, arranged alphabetically by topic, on all aspects of business ethics.
    Foster Business Library Reference, CALL NUMBER: HF5387 .E53 2008.

    See Copyrights in volume one, on pages 448 to 451, and Trademarks in volume five, on pages 2088 to 2090.

  • Smith and Robertson's business law.
    This massive one-volume reference is a standard source for information on business law, including the legal environment of business, contracts, agency, sales, negotiable instruments, unincorporated business associations, corporations, debtor and creditor relations, business regulation, and property. Appendices include various relevant codes and acts and a dictionary of legal terms.
    Foster Business Library Reference, CALL NUMBER: KF888 .S554 1997.

    See Copyrights, starting on page 1015, with a case example starting on page 1024; see Trademarks, starting on page 1014; see Trade names on page 1015.

  • Guide to modern business and commercial law.
    This volume includes an introduction to business and commercial law, contracts, intellectual property, sales and sales contracts, letters of credit, negotiable instruments, business organizations and securities regulation, trade regulation and anti-trust, debtors and creditors, real property, labor relations, and environmental law.
    Foster Business Library Reference, CALL NUMBER: KF889 .K37 1992.

    See Copyright in the index on pages 1311 to 1312; see Trademarks/Trade Names in the index on page 1322.

  • The complete small business legal guide.
    The subtitle of this 340-page paperback is "how to understand legal issues and protect your small business, complete with forms."
    Foster Business Library Reference, CALL NUMBER: KF1659 .F75 1993.

    See Copyrights, starting on pages 75 and 180; see Trademark, pages 75 and 139 to 141.

  • The American Bar Association legal guide for small business.
    The subtitle of this recent 500-page paperback is "everything a small business person must know, from start-up to employmen laws to financing and selling a business."
    Foster Business Library Reference, CALL NUMBER: KF1659 .Z9 .A43 2000.

    See Copyright on pages 360 to 363; see Trademark pages 346 to 350, 366 to 367; see Trade Name on pages 23, 227, and 350 to 351.

  • How to get your own trademark.
    This 1993 paperback is a guide for obtaining a trademark, with trademark application forms, trademark search information, and applicable regulations and codes.
    Foster Business Library Reference, CALL NUMBER: KF3180 .Z9 N53 1993.

    Everything about how to set up (or learn how to set up) a trademark; see the definition of a Tradename on page 79.

  • Companies and their brands / Brands and their companies.
    This five-volume directory provides information on trade names, including 84,000 manufacturers and 358,000 consumer product brands.
    Foster Business Library Reference, CALL NUMBERS: T223 .V4 .A22 2004 and T223 .V4 .A23 2004.

    Use Companies and their brands to identify all trade names associated with particular companies; use Brands and their companies to identify the company behind a trade name. Foster Business Library Books:

    The Foster Business Library maintains a collection of over 70,000 books on all business topics. To search for materials on all three campuses of the University of Washington, go to the UW Libraries Catalog, in the upper left corner of the Foster Business Library homepage. Search by keyword, title, author, series, etc.

    To limit the results of your search just to materials in the Foster Business Library collection, use the Modify or Limit options at the top of the search results and change the library location to Foster Business Library. Availablity is indicated on the right of each online catalog record. First, note in which collection, within Foster, your materials are in, since the library has ten different Collections, each in a different location and often with differing arrangements. "Available" indicates that the book should be on the shelves under that call number and available for you to check out. "Due" and a date indicates that the book is already checked out to someone and is due back on the date indicated; you can have the "Request/Place Hold" feature to recall the book for your use.

    If the material you want is not in the collections of the University of Washington, you can use the "Search Summit" feature to repeat your search in the combined holdings of over thirty cooperating libraries in Washington and Oregon. Use the "Request This Item" feature in Summit to have books in those library sent here to Foster for you to check out.

    The Foster general stacks collection is located south of the main part of the Foster Business Library, through the two pass-throughs into the basement of Balmer. The arrangement is by call number, from A (at the east end, near the Copy Center) to Z (at the far west end).

    Searching for the keyword Copyright in the UW Libraries Catalog retrieved a list of more than 4,400 records; limiting this search to the Foster Business Library cut the number of records to 27 records.

    A search for the keyword Trademark retrieved a list of over 600 records, many of them in the Engineering Library. Limiting this list to materials in the Foster Business Library cut the number to 18 records.

    A search for the keywords Trade Name or Trade Names produced a list of over 50 records; limiting this search to the Foster Business Library reduced the results to just eight records.

    Examples of titles from these searches include:

    Foster Business Library Articles:

    Articles in academic journals, magazines, trade periodicals, and newspapers are one of the best sources for any kind of research. While the Foster Business Library offers a large periodicals print collection, comprising over 800 titles, articles are most easily accessed online, 24/7, in such fulltext article databases as EBSCO Business Source Premier, Factiva, LexisNexis Academic, Newsbank Infoweb, and ProQuest Databases. These article databases are available in the library or from off-campus, and provide access to over 10,000 periodicals and millions of articles.

    Library access to most ProQuest databases will terminate at the end of spring quarter 2008, except for ProQuest NewsStand, ProQuest Dissertations and Theses, Historical New York Times, and the Historical Wall Street Journal. For more about this change, see UW Libraries Providing New Databases. After this change, comprehensive article searches should be performed in EBSCO Business Source Premier, Newsbank Infoweb, and ProQuest NewsStand. Also, after this change, links to the articles below will be broken.

    ProQuest Databases:

    This database--actually, a family of over two dozen databases--offers full text articles for over 10,000 publications, including scholarly journals, magazines, trade and industry periodicals, newspapers, and reports on a very wide range of topics. To find articles on specific topics, search by word or phrase by keying your search phrase into the search box--or search for your topic in the Topic Guide.

    Your search terms will be highlighted in red in each article.

    For example, a search in this database, for Copyright and Trademark, produced a list of over 10,000 articles, with more than two hundred articles in scholarly journals. A similar search for "Trade Names" produced a list of over 14,000 articles; "Trademark Infringement," over 4,800 articles.

    Go to Topic Guide to search for subjects by subject category. A search for the subject SUB(Copyright) for instance, produced a list of over 19,000 articles. This search can be narrowed by more than eighty related topics, from Amendments to Writers. Help:

    9 February 2000; updated 8 May 2008.   Peter Stevens, Business Librarian, stevens@u.washington.edu