8154 / What is the difference between copyrights, patents, and trademarks?
Under the preemption section of the copyright law,1 if the copyright law provides a given right, there cannot be concurrent identical trade secret protection. However, if a choice does exist and the work lends itself to being kept secret, one might pursue the trade secret route. On the other hand, if the product is one which, when entering the marketplace, is easily observed and hence cannot be kept secret, then at least as between trade secrets and copyrights, copyrights may provide the only viable means of protection.
A primary distinction between patents and trade secrets on the one hand and copyrights on the other hand, is that both patents and trade secrets protect a basic idea, whereas the copyright law protects only an expression of an idea but not the idea itself. For example, if blueprints of a machine were copyrighted, this would not prevent one from copying the machine itself, if in making the copy of the machine reference was not made to the copyrighted blueprints. A copyright on a basic video game having, for example, a pattern of moving objects would probably not prevent others from making and selling a video game having an altogether different pattern with similar movements of the objects. It would probably be concluded that the latter merely copied the basic idea of the game, and not the author’s copyrighted expression thereof.
1.17 USC § 301.