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There is a desperate race to trademark… everything going on right now, and it’s going to cost you dearly whether you notice it or not.
Don’t believe me, well what do the words “superhero”, “realtor”, “face”, “that’s hot” and “bam” all have in common?
They are common words used every day that are actually the legal property of different corporations, and that’s not even the craziest thing that companies are silently putting in their vaults of intellectual property.
We are always told about the wonders of fair competition, but the truth is, if you run a business, competition sucks. To compete in business, you have to provide a better product, market more effectively or lower your prices. Getting those first two right is really hard and lowering prices means less money in your pocket.
It would be so much easier if you could just run your competition out of business and this is genuinely a great business strategy. There is only one problem, it’s illegal, and if you aren’t smart about how you do it, you are going to find yourself in competition with the Federal Trade Commission… in federal court…
But there is a way that you can avoid competition and actually have the authorities on your side to defend it, and that’s by having a trademark, copyright or patent to protect your business.
These are not all the same and companies have realised one is much better than the others…
A patent protects new inventions or scientific discoveries for a period of 20 years. If you invent a new battery that gives electric cars 2,000 miles of range, you should file a patent so car companies can’t use it… without paying you of course.
A patent has to be legally filed with the Patent and Trademark Office.
If a patent is very complicated it can take a long time to get approval but in the meantime your invention will be patent pending, which has no legal protection by itself but will warn other businesses that they will be wasting their money creating the same product because they won’t be allowed to sell it if your patent is eventually approved.
A copyright automatically applies to any creative work. If you write a song, make an original video or paint an artwork copyright will automatically apply to that work and will stay in place for 70 years after your death.
No filing is required for creative works, but it can be harder to legally prove copyright in court if someone does copy what you are doing. Trademarks are… to use the legal terminology… totally OP
The only problem with Trademarks is that they ONLY apply to elements that are clearly related to the branding of a business. For example, a logo like this [Apple logo], or this [HMW logo], can be trademarked because they clearly relate to the branding and identity of a business. Trademarks can also be applied to iconography like micky mouses ears could be trademarked but a movie like Micky Mouse Steamboat Willie can NOT be trademarked because it’s a creative work, NOT branding. Steamboat Willie Actually enter the public domain in just two weeks.
If you are a crafty businessman, you can really corrupt the intention of what trademarks are meant to do by claiming that a catchphrase, sound, image or even a word is part of your branding.
Facebook successfully trademarked the word face, and if you ever wanted to create your own supernaturally powerful heroes you can’t call them superheroes because that’s a trademark which is jointly owned by DC and Marvel, the only companies that will ever be able to make superheroes without the permission of DC or Marvel. In the age of the influencer where the line between brand and human are getting blurred cunning celebrities are jumping in too.
And driving up the value of their business without really doing anything is just the first reason, so it’s time to learn How Money Works, to find out why businesses are desperately trying to trademark everything all of a sudden.
26 дек 2023
