In this transcript, Clay Clark (business coach and speaker of choice for Hewlett-Packard, Maytag University, and more) and Wes Carter (Attorney for Winters & King Law, Inc.) discuss the importance of preparing your intellectual property on Thrive15.com, the most elite sales training program.
In this transcript, Clay Clark (business coach and speaker of choice for Hewlett-Packard, Maytag University, and more) and Wes Carter (Attorney for Winters & King Law, Inc.) discuss the importance of preparing your intellectual property on Thrive15.com, the most elite sales training program.Clay clark: Wes Carter how are you?
Wes Carter: I’m doing great. How are you doing?
Clay clark: Somewhere between awesome and amazing.
Wes Carter: Awesome.
Clay clark: So I’m right there.
Wes Carter: Somewhere in that zone?
Clay clark: Yes, somewhere in that business coach zone. We’re talking today about … I’m stating the zone between awesome and amazing, and about trademarks and copyrights. We’re doing a deep dive into this, about protecting our intellectual property. Specifically Rebecca, one of our Thrivers has asked a lot of questions. She’s saying, “I want to know how to protect my intellectual property.” She sounds like she’s a ‘momprenuer’, starting a business as a mom, and she’s concerned that she’s going to take her idea out there and it’s not going to … She’s not going to be able to protect it. Here we go. Wes, with the idea of trademarks and copyrights, how do you begin to protect your intellectual property? In what circumstances should we even want to protect our intellectual property?
Wes Carter: I think you always want to protect your intellectual property. The key is knowing, one, what do you protect, and two, what’s the right way to protect it. Copyrights and trademarks are for two different things, trademarks are for logos, names, branding things, stuff you are going to use for branding.
Clay clark: We an put this up on the screen, can you repeat that again?
Wes Carter: The trademarks that you should equate with branding, so were talking about your name, your logo, a slogan, things that you are going to put on your product or advertise for your service, that’s how the customer is going to identify you.
Clay clark: Okay. Tell this ole business coach something….Have you met a customer or a client, because you’re an attorney, where they come in and they say I definitely want to trademark this, or I want to copyright this, and you say not worth it.
Wes Carter: Yes. There are somethings that you cannot trademark. If you are going to use something that’s just common language as your business name, you can’t stop other people from using that word.
Clay clark: Okay.
Wes Carter: There are certain things there … Or it just describes, ‘really awesome apples’ that’s the name of your business, that just describes how good your apples are and so you can’t trademark that. There has to be some line that the customer has to draw between that name, or your product or service, to be able to protect that.
Clay clark: Note to self and to the 14 year quest to trademark the word awesome.
Wes Carter: Yes.
Clay clark: Can’t do that. Okay. Now, as far as the actual word intellectual property, I want to define that, I want to ask you about it because you hear a lot of mess around ‘well I should copyright that intellectual property’, ‘I should trademark that intellectual property’. I’ve talked to a lot of entrepreneurs who say I want to trademark this, I want to copyright … Let’s get into this word intellectual property. Webster says it’s an idea, an invention or process that derives from the work of the mind, or the intellect. Also, an application, right, or registration relating to this. Wes, what does intellectual property mean? I want a third grade level for common folk like myself.
Wes Carter: Just your idea. It’s a broad general term that describes trademarks, copyrights, and patterns usually. It’s just your idea that … Something unique that you came up with that you want to protect.
Clay clark: Okay, now I’m moving onto another word that my main man Webster and his dictionary folks have decided to describe here. This is the word copyright. And it says, the legal right to be the only one to reproduce publish or sell a book, musical recording, for a certain period of time, the exclusive legal right to reproduce, publish, sell, or distribute the matter and form of something as a literary, musical, or artistic work. Break it down for for this business coach, what does a copyright mean for a typical entrepreneur honey badger, watching this.
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Wes Carter: Copyright protects the expression of an idea, I doesn’t protect the idea itself, but the expression of the idea. So your book, your YouTube video, your song that you wrote or your movie that you shot. It protects that artistic work and keeps other people from using that. It gives you the exclusive right to make money off that and exploit that work.