Intellectual property laws/rights?

[larenzo]

what is the statute that protects intellectal property before filing for the actual copyright, trademarks, and all that. I ask because i am in the proces of creating a website that uses a software program but i am ready to launch it but until all the paperwork is done and accepted i want to add a disclaimer to my website that says it is protected by intellectual property statute but i can't find out exactly where it is from

[cinnard]

There is no such thing as an encompassing "intellectual property statute." For example, the Copyright Act governs copyright law, and the Lanham Act governs federal trademark law. You will need to be more specific if you want to give proper notice of your intellectual property rights.

A proper copyright notice includes a circle-c symbol, the year of first publication, and the name of the copyright owner.

http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ03.pdf

A proper trademark notice for an unregistered trademark is a TM symbol.

http://www.uspto.gov/faq/trademarks.jsp#_Toc275426682