Lake Forest is a city in Orange County, California. The population was 78,344 as of January 1, 2009. With 6,282 inhabitants per square mile (2,425 /km), it is currently the most densely populated city in South Orange County. Lake Forest incorporated as a city on December 20, 1991. Since being incorporated, it has expanded its limits to include the communities of Foothill Ranch and Portola Hills. Foothill Ranch and Portola Hills are master planned developments that brought new homes and commercial centers to the Eastern boundary of Lake Forest throughout the 1990s. Lake Forest (along with its neighboring cities Mission Viejo and Irvine) is ranked as one of the safest cities in the country. The private research firm Morgan Quitno ranked Lake Forest as the 15th safest city and another firm later ranked Lake Forest 10th in 2007 in the United States. The city has two lakes from which the city gets its name. The lakes are man-made, and condominiums and custom homes ranging from large to small line their shores. The Lake Forest Beach and Tennis Club and Sun and Sail Club feature tennis courts, gyms, basketball courts, barbecue pits, volleyball courts, multiple swimming pools, saunas, hot tubs and club houses for social events. The "forest" for which the city is also named lies in the area between Ridge Route, Jeronimo, Lake Forest and Serrano roads, and consists mostly of Eucalyptus trees. It began in the 1900s when a local landowner, Dwight Whiting, planted 400 acres of Eucalyptus groves in the vicinity of Serrano Creek as part of a lumber operation. In the late 1960s, the Occidental Petroleum company developed a residential community in and around the Eucalyptus groves which had long since expanded and grown much more dense.

What is intellectual property law?

Under intellectual property law, owners are granted certain exclusive rights to a variety of intangible assets, such as musical, literary, and artistic works; discoveries and inventions; and words, phrases, symbols, and designs. Common types of intellectual property include copyrights, trademarks, patents, industrial design rights and trade secrets. Intellectual property law involves advising and assisting individuals and businesses on the development, use, and protection of intellectual property -- which includes ideas, artistic creations, engineering processes, scientific inventions, and more.

Answers to intellectual property law issues in California

A patent is a document issued by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) that grants a monopoly for a limited...

Some types of inventions will not qualify for a patent, no matter how interesting or important they are. For example...

In the context of a patent application, an invention is considered novel when it is different from all...

Once a patent is issued, it is up to the owner to enforce it. If friendly negotiations fail, enforcement involves...

Patent protection usually ends when the patent expires.

For all utility patents filed before June 8, 1995,...

Typically, inventor-employees who invent in the course of their employment are bound by employment agreements that...

On its own, a patent has no value. A patent becomes valuable only when a patent owner takes action to profit from...

Copyright protects works such as poetry, movies, video games, videos, DVDs, plays, paintings, sheet music, recorded...

For works published after 1977, the copyright lasts for the life of the author plus 70 years. However, if the work...

The term "trademark" is commonly used to describe many different types of devices that label, identify, and...