Chesapeake is an independent city located in the South Hampton Roads portion of the Hampton Roads metropolitan area of Virginia in the United States. One of the Seven Cities of Hampton Roads, Chesapeake was formed in 1963 by a political consolidation of the City of South Norfolk with the former Norfolk County, which dated to 1691. Chesapeake is the second-largest city by land area in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Chesapeake is a diverse city with few urban areas as well as many square miles of protected farmland, forests, and wetlands, including a substantial portion of the Great Dismal Swamp. Extending all the way from the rural border with North Carolina to the harbor area of Hampton Roads adjacent to the cities of Norfolk and Portsmouth, Chesapeake is located on the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway and has miles of waterfront industrial, commercial and residential property. It is currently the third largest city in Virginia in terms of population. In 2006, its population was estimated to be 220,560, a 10.7% increase since its 2000 census count . Its median household income in 2007 was $63,016, the highest in South Hampton Roads .

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 Virginia

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...