Stop the thief! That is my content!
Posting your creative genius on the Internet can lead to a host of problems not commonly found in the “real world.” In the days before the proliferation of the World Wide Web, artisans and designers were lulled into a false sense of security by the lack of “corporate espionage.” After all, we are a community, right?
Incorrect.
Your ideas are your ‘wealth’ and if you don’t take the proper steps to protect that wealth, you will feel desperate and wonder where you went wrong as you watch your competitors benefit from your hard work. Before you start selling your products online, there are basic IP concepts that you should know and use to your advantage.
I recently spoke with business owners about this very topic and found a common statement in all of their stories; It looks something like this:
“I was preparing to contribute to a sample program and shared the ideas for my sample products. Someone in an online community that I belong to made the exact same article, including my exact texts and materials, and submitted it to the program. before I could. “
Don’t let this happen to you.
Intellectual property can take the form of articles, ideas for a new business, or even products that you have developed and are selling through your website. The ways you legally protect your intellectual property vary depending on the type of property you want to protect. Having a working knowledge of these methods will not only help you in your own business, but will also ensure that you do not infringe on the rights of others.
One of the most common mistakes people make is that they believe that any work without a copyright notice is free. While the correct form of copyright notice is “Copyright or © (date) by (author / owner)”, the absence of the word and / or trademark does not entitle you to publish, use or take the work.
Anything posted on the Internet after April 1, 1989 is copyrighted by the owner or author, whether or not it has a notice. You should assume that when you are viewing a website, the content is protected by copyright, unless the author specifies otherwise.
However, this inherent copyright is not enough to protect your ideas from theft. As you develop your ideas and go public – to someone else or to the whole world – you must use a combination of contracts and legal registration to keep them safe.
If you plan to work with someone to further develop a product or idea (be it an employee or a partner), you should consider having all parties involved sign a combined “non-disclosure and non-competition” agreement. This is a very basic contract that most attorneys can draft in a matter of minutes.
A nondisclosure agreement (also known as an NDA or confidentiality agreement) is a contract between parties that promise to protect the confidentiality of secret information that is disclosed during employment, a partnership, or other type of business transaction. If you have entered into a nondisclosure agreement with someone who then uses your secret without your authorization, you can ask the court to stop the violator from making further disclosures. You can also sue for damages caused by your disclosures.
Non-compete agreements protect you from losing valuable business secrets and employees to someone who has previously worked with or for you. In a non-compete agreement, the parties promise not to work for a direct competitor for a specified period of time after leaving the current partnership or job.
There is nothing more painful than seeing someone you once trusted take your ideas and use them for their own personal gain. Although it may seem “a bit exaggerated” to require this type of document between friends, it is very common for friendships to fail because of money and for one of the parties to end up despised and penniless. If you work with anyone who has access to confidential business information or trade secrets, you obviously want to prevent them from disclosing this information to your competitors and must move to a current employment contract.
Now that you’ve covered your ideas with legal documents, it’s time to consider registering them with the US Patent and Trademark Office.There are three ways to register your intellectual property: copyright, trademark, or patent. A copyright protects an original artistic or literary work; a patent protects an invention. A trademark is a bit more complicated as there are two types of trademarks. A regular trademark is a word, phrase, symbol or design (or a combination thereof) that identifies and distinguishes your products from those of others. For example, the corporate giant Coca-Cola has its ‘swirl’ (a design) registered as a trademark.
The secondary type of trademark is called a service mark and is the same as a trademark, except that it identifies and distinguishes the source of a service rather than a product. A perfect example of a service mark would be Blockbuster; is a service provider (video rental) that has registered its name with the US Patent and Trademark Office.
Trademarks are the most widely used form of protection for small businesses. Interestingly, you don’t need to register your trademark with the government in order to use the symbol (TM) and claim the rights to the trademark; You can establish those rights based on the fair use of the trademark. However, should a problem arise in the future, having the trademark (as indicated by the (R) symbol) will offer you the following benefits:
* the public will be informed that you have registered the trademark;
* the court will assume legal ownership of the trademark and its exclusive right to use the trademark throughout the country in or in relation to the products and / or services it listed in the registry;
* the ability to file trademark infringement lawsuits in federal court;
* the ability to use the US registration as a way to obtain registration in foreign countries; and
* the ability to file the US registration with US Customs to prevent the importation of infringing foreign merchandise.
Whenever you claim trademark rights, you can use the “TM” (trademark) or “SM” (service mark) designation to alert others to your claim, regardless of whether you have filed an application with the USPTO for the Mark. . However, you can only use the federal registration symbol “®” after the USPTO has actually registered a trademark; you cannot use it while a request is pending.
With a combination of common sense, legal documentation, and federal registration, you can ensure that you are the only one who will benefit from your creativity, dedication, and hard work. For more information on the legal documents discussed here, visit CoolLawyer.com (http://www.coollawyer.com).
To begin the process of registering a trademark, service mark, patent, or copyright, visit the US Patent and Trademark Office at http://www.uspto.gov.
– Please note that this article is written for informational purposes only. It is not intended to be legal advice. Only an attorney can provide you with specific advice relevant to your situation. If you feel the need to protect yourself or your ideas more, be sure to speak with a local patent attorney. © 2005 by Tamara Dourney.