LibGuides: Business of Art & Design: Legal forms, trademarks & contracts

Protect your designs / Legal resources for artists

Intellectual Property and Copyright Information from the Visual Resources Association
Everything you need to know about copyright and intellectual property as it pertains to the use and creation of images.
Patent Attorneys/Agents Search
Database of attorneys and agents with licenses to practice before the US Patent and Trademark Office.
Resources from the US Patent and Trademark Office
Resources for inventors and entrepreneurs.
FindLaw for Small Business
Many sample legal forms and contracts. Sample corporate bylaws

Use the Intellectual Property Guide to view a variety of outside resources related to publishing and intellectual property including Copyright, Trademarks, Fair Use, and Open Access.

Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts
Directories of lawyers and legal organizations, links to sites on intellectual property, sample legal forms and contracts, and related small business sources

What is a Patent?
From the USPTO
Trademark Basics
From the USPTO
US Patent Search
Inventors are encouraged to search the USPTO’s patent database to see if a patent has already been filed or granted that is similar to your patent. Patents may be searched in the USPTO Patent Full-Text and Image Database (PatFT). The USPTO houses full text for patents issued from 1976 to the present and PDF images for all patents from 1790 to the present.
Google Patent Search
Google Patents covers the entire collection of granted patents and published patent applications from the USPTO, EPO, and WIPO. US patent documents date back to 1790, EPO and WIPO to 1978.
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Includes the scans of the original documents with images.
Trademark Search
Welcome to the Trademark Electronic Search System (TESS). This search engine allows you to search the USPTO's database of registered trademarks and prior pending applications to find marks that may prevent registration due to a likelihood of confusion refusal.

"The Creative Commons copyright licenses and tools forge a balance inside the traditional “all rights reserved” setting that copyright law creates. Our tools give everyone from individual creators to large companies and institutions a simple, standardized way to grant copyright permissions to their creative work. The combination of our tools and our users is a vast and growing digital commons, a pool of content that can be copied, distributed, edited, remixed, and built upon, all within the boundaries of copyright law. " - CreativeCommons.org

About the Licenses
This link will take you a a detail explanation of what Creative Commons licenses do and what they don't do.
Choosing a Creative Commons License
An interactive module to help you choose a license and to make it easier for others to attribute credit to your work.

Business & Legal forms for artists & designers

Business and Legal Forms for Photographers

Business and Legal Forms for Illustrators

Business and Legal Forms for Graphic Designers

Business and Legal Forms for Fine Artists

Business and Legal Forms for Industrial Designers

Business and Legal Forms for Interior Designers

Business and Legal Forms for Crafters

Legal forms

These books have sample forms to copy or to revise for your own needs. Check OneSearch for more, using these phrases:

business law forms
contracts forms

Finding Company information & Annual reports

FYI - The Library does not hold print copies of Annual Reports. This information as well as other financial information is readily available online, and companies often have a 5-10 year archive of past Annual Reports available on their website

To find a company's financial information:

Visit the company's website

Click on the link to Investor Relations (usually located at the bottom of the homepage or use the site map)

Click on Annual Reports or SEC Filings, which may include annual reports

Links to investor information may be on the About or Company Information pages

When a store is part of a larger company, their financial information may be included in the parent company's report. For example, Victoria's Secret is a brand of Limitedbrands, so information for Victoria's Secret is located on the Limitedbrands website. Check the About page for a link to the parent company’s website.

Try searching the company’s name and “annual report” in a web browser

Key words to use when locating a company's annual reports: Investor Relations, Investors, Company Information, Financial Records, SEC Filings, Annual Report, 10-K, etc.