How to Unlock the Power of Your Company’s Intellectual Property You May Not Even Know You Have
A lot of small businesses are producing new ways of doing things and creating all kinds of materials and processes that they may not think about officially protecting but they could really increase the value of the company when it’s time to look for investors or sell the business.
Trademarks:
* Definition: A name, logo, number(s) or even a sound or a smell that identify and distinguish one business or product from another
- Your Company Name
Examples: Apple Computers; McDonald’s; Burger King
- Product Names
Examples: “iPhone”; “iPad”; iTunes”; “Big Mac”; “Whopper”; “
- Logos
Examples: Apple with bite taken out; Nike “swoosh”; KFC’s Colonel Sanders logo;
- Slogans & Tag Lines
Example: “Don’t Leave Home Without It”
- Unique Product Shapes & Designs
Examples: shape & color of green Perrier bottle
Restaurant layout for Fuddrucker’s hamburgers
- Domain Names
Examples: Amazon.com; Wsradio.com; Overstock.com
* (where the domain name is also the brand name)
Goal: Register them federally; and in your state; and perhaps internationally
Copyrights
- Definition: “Works of Authorship”, e.g., motion pictures, screenplays, books, illustrations, computer programs
- Examples in business: brochures; flyers; newspaper & magazine ads; photographs; illustrations; website content; computer programs; instruction manuals; video presentations; audio presentations
- Goal: Register them with U.S. Copyright Office. (The penalty for not officially registering the copyright can be severe)
Trade Secrets
- Definition: some information, process, or technique that by being kept secret gives you an advantage over the competition AND you actually do keep it secret
- Examples: Coca-cola formula; KFC’s “11 Secret Herbs & Spices”; formulation for surfboard wax that works especially well in cold water as opposed to warm water
- Goal: keep it secret! (There is no registration process)
Patents
- A new, novel, and nonobvious process, tool, or formulation
- Examples: socket wrench; Netflix method for picking, shipping & keeping track of DVD rentals; chemical and pharmaceutical formulations; Adobe’s PDF technology
* (There are also design & plant patents, but time today doesn’t permit discussion of them)
- Goal: File patent application within one year of first public disclosure (U.S.) or BEFORE first public disclosure in most of rest of world.