EVERY CATEGORY OF IPR EMPRICALLY FAILS!

Each of the four major categories of intellectual property rights fails to protect Native American tribal names for a different reason, leaving them unprotected in the public domain for general use or misuse.  Trade secret law fails to protect tribal culture and names because tribes do not attempt to keep these things secret.  Sacred objects are widely known throughout the tribe and sometimes  as part of their ritual usage.  Patent similarly provides no obvious protection for tribal names and culture because they are not new scientific inventions or technological advancements.  Although some  with registering their names as a trademark, registration requires that a name or cultural object be used in commerce and that the word not be a generic term.  These requirements can quickly invalidate tribal names since many tribes do not commercialize their names or culture, nor do they want to do so, and tribal words have been appropriated by white companies for years which puts them in danger of being labeled generic.  Some tribal symbols have even been incorporated into  and are therefore specifically invalidated from being trademarked.  Copyright protections also frequently fail to protect tribal names and cultural symbols.  Copyright is generally reserved for expressive works, not individual works or short phrases, which prevents tribes from copyrighting their names.  Similarly, because copyright focuses on providing exclusivity to a creator, tribes are not able to identify a single person or small group of persons who whom they could attribute the name or cultural concept.  Finally, copyright is time restricted, usually applying only to the life of the author plus 70 years, which would leave tribal names and traditional symbols open to misappropriation again relatively quickly.  The  is also considered an intellectual property right which allows people to control their name and image, but this right is generally reserved only for individual identities and not for group identities, which generally fall under trademark law.