Why is the Office of Patents and Trademarks in the Commerce Department?

[lazaro94]

Its on a review for one of my finals, but I cant find the answer anywhere.

[gervaso81]

Patents and Trademarks are all part of Intellectual Property - something which is generated out of your pure thought process, knowledge and research.
But not every Intellectual property is protected by the inventor and not all brand names are protected like wise.

People and companies protect their inventions and trademarks only when they want to trade on them.

Example - For invention:
After you have invented something, what to you do? You either try for technology transfer, i.e. selling your technology to some research organization or industry (like research organizations make a drug after research, patent it and then sell it to pharma companies.)

Example for Trademark: If you are successful in making a brand name which is becoming famous due to good service or product etc. what do you do - 1) you either make a prototype and try to sell franchisees of the brand and spread the brand or you may want to protect the business in a from of a secret (like mixture to make coco cola has been kept a trade secret by the coco cola company) - again this is also a trade related decision.

So you see people / organizations / companies protect something only when there is a trade related issue involved, so the commerce department.

[ealahweemah72]

Because those are instruments used in commerce. You get a patent on a product you invent so that you can sell it. You get a trademark on your logo for the purpose of engaging in commerce.