When it comes to protecting your business idea from being ripped off by competitors, few entrepreneurs know where to start. But there are a few key things you can do when it is still in its infancy that will help you lay the groundwork for a strong intellectual property strategy. In this article we cover trademarks, patents, and copyrights — the three main types of intellectual property protection for business ideas.
1. Trademarks protect your brand from being copied.
Trademarks protect your brand from being copied. You don’t want your brand to be associated with a product that you don’t sell or a service that you don’t provide, so be sure to get a trademark before you start building your brand and before you start making and selling products and services. Patents protect your ideas from being limited by the physical technologies that others have created. Despite what you might read in the shady back rooms of Patent Prision, patents protect intellectual property and give you a way to protect your ideas against being copied.
Copyrights are limited to the writings, sounds, and images of your culture. So if you write a book about how your family really encountered that lost kitten, you can copyright that content. If you write a book about how hot it would be to sleep naked, it’s probably not going to get published. But if you blog about how hot it would be to sleep naked and it gets a lot of blog links, it might become one of your most successful business ideas.
How to Get Legal Protection for Your Business Idea
1. Determine that your idea is broody
Where to start: Determine that your business idea is broody by asking yourself if it’s really possible that your competitor would come up with an idea that would be more infringing.
How to defeat the potential competitor: Determine what you think your competitor would be able to do and what your business idea would be. What technology could your competitor access? How would they manage their data? How many people might need to be involved? How would your audience interact with the idea?
2. Determine why your competitor would try to copy you
Where to start: Determine why your competitor would want to copy your business idea:
How to defeat the potential competitor: Determine if your competition is offering one of “the few” things you’re offering. If it’s not one of “the few,” you’re going to have a real uphill battle.
2. Patents protect the functional aspects of your product from being copied
A patent is a government-issued monopoly that gives you the sole right to make, use or sell an invention for a period of time (usually 20 years). You should apply for a patent if you want to protect the functional aspects of your product from being copied by your competitors.
A trademark is a message that you can place on any container, article, or piece of equipment identifying it as your trademark. These messages can be used to identify your product as having unique characteristics, and thus protect it from being diluted due to jargon. When you use a trademark effectively you can defend against attacks by other businesses and consumers.
A copyright is a law that protects original content from being changed or copied. When protected, your copyright protects your original ideas, not just the tangible copies you create. Original content includes text, music, photographs, images, sound, and motion. Lots of businesses use trademarks and copyrights to protect their ideas.
Finally, a trademark is a lot stronger than the others because it gets stronger as the value of the owner grows. Larger brands and businesses are probably better protected than their less valuable competitors. Of course, the UK government is going to give you a trademark or copyright regardless of the value, but there are some advantages to getting it through a federal or state government agency.
Trademark and Patent Law
Trademark and copyright law can be confusing at first, but we’re going to keep it simple in this post. Trademark law is designed to protect companies, which gives you additional protections. It doesn’t cover entrepreneurs and personal entrepreneurs, and it doesn’t describe the IP protection issues you should be planning to include in your business plan.
trademarks are approved by government or semi-governmental agencies. For example, the English language mark "Third Man" is federally registered to prevent other businesses from using the name and confusing consumers about the source of our services.
3. Copyrights protect the creative elements of your product from being copied
Copyright is a form of protection provided by the laws of the United Kingdom (title 17, U.K. Code) to the authors of "original works of authorship," including literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, and certain other intellectual works. This protection is available to both published and unpublished works. There “authors” and their works that are protected. The U.K., unlike the U.K., does not have an “copyright notice” on first-hand materials. Instead, the copyright notice is found on copies of protected works.
Trademark (and many similar) laws protect companies and their “marks.” Thus, every company has a “Trademark” registered with the U.K. Federal Government, and this protects its “name, slogan, slogan-like membership goods, symbols or trade dress.” The name itself, when used in commerce, is considered “trade dress.”
A trademark is “merely the name of a particular kind of thing, the color of which is distinctive or distinctive,” and any use of a trademark in commerce is subject to protection. Thus, brand names are considered “trademarks” for purposes of protecting the investment of time and money to register and protect them. Of course, with the advent of the Internet, “Trademark” protection extends far beyond copy marks.
Patents provide limited protection for original works of authorship. In order to receive " copyright protection," the idea must be new, not previously known, and the proposed work must be innovative and distinctive. Thus, an idea can become “new” (and therefore protectable) after publication through press coverage or other publicity. A patent gives the creator of the idea exclusive rights, but the protections are limited and the burden of proof is on the infringer to show that he infringed the patent.
Patents are available even if the unprotected element of the idea is not published. Thus, if you develop a method or system for producing non-text informational content, then you are not liable for infringement because you did not publish the idea.
Both trademarks and patents can be ridiculously complicated.
4. Each of these three things is important, but they all rely on each other for protection.
When you’re a freelancer, it’s important to make sure you have a good working relationship with your client, a good contract, and a good lawyer. You will have a better relationship with your client if you have a good contract and a good lawyer. If your lawyer doesn’t have your best interest in mind, you won’t be in a very good situation.
Intellectual property is very important because you want to protect your business idea from other people who might steal it and start their own business. If someone invents a new idea for a product or a service, it's virtually impossible to prevent them from getting their idea somewhere else. Trademark, copyright, and patent laws are designed to protect the original form of your business idea. If someone else copies that idea, they can start a new business in your name.
What are trademarks, copyrights, and patents? Trademark, copyright, and patent laws determine the legal protection that you have for certain types of your business ideas.
Trademark acts as a kind of protection for certain types of business names. If you are attacked for the use of your business name, the trademark holder can prevent other people — and websites — from using that name. This helps protect your business.
All businesses have the right to protect their trademarks. However, companies of any size have the most protections under the laws that protect trademarks. The majority of consumers think of trademarks when they think of companies — and they have significant impact on consumers and businesses. Copyrights and patents cover standard intellectual property such as books and copyrightable works.
Like trademarks, copyrights and patents are generally available for all businesses. However, trademarks and copyrights differ in certain important ways when it comes to protecting business ideas.
I. Trademark and Copyright
Trademarks and copyright law cover all forms of intellectual property. For example, your registered trademark gives you exclusive rights to use the name that you registered at any time for a certain length of time.
Conclusion: You can't really go wrong with any of these three things, but it is important to realize that they are different and to make sure you get them all right if you want to really protect yourself in the long run.
Thanks for reading! I hope you found this post helpful. If you want to read more, check out the rest of this blog.