Protect Your Valuable Intellectual Property
Small Business Owners
Check out our free Legal Roadmap for small business owners HERE.
“Intellectual property (IP) often represents one of the largest asset classes that a company holds...” Keith Tully (Read More).
For Creators:
Check out our blog on Legal Tips for Indie Creators & Musicians, including an overview of copyright protection and infringement: HERE.
For Inventors:
If you are a serious inventor, meaning you want to patent your invention, there are a few steps that are absolutely critical as you develop your invention:
Write everything down in an inventor’s notebook or journal.
“…in order to obtain a patent and become an inventor it will be necessary to transition from where you first have the idea to some tangible manifestation that describes the structure of the invention with instruction manual level detail. This means the travel along the path to invention will take time. As with any lengthy project, keeping notes and tracking progress, success and failures becomes exceptionally important. Keeping an invention notebook or other invention record is an extremely wise thing to do, and in fact should be done by every inventor.” -Gene Quinn (Patent Attorney, Patent Expert, & Author of IP Watch Dog)
Click HERE for more of Gene’s thoughts on the importance of inventor’s notes!
Maintain the confidentiality of every detail of your invention and development activities.
Understand the patent process in your country. Start Up Heart Up is based in the US, and all of our materials relate to US law.
Click HERE for state-by-state resources for inventors and entrepreneurs.
Trademark
A trademark is generally a word, name, or symbol that is used when selling goods or services, and may be registered with the US Patent & Trademark Office.
Copyright
Copyright is a form of protection provided to authors of creative “original works of authorship”, such as writings, images, and recordings, and may be registered with the U.S. Copyright Office.
Patent
A patent for an invention is the grant of an exclusive property right to the inventor (or other owner, if assigned), issued by the US Patent & Trademark Office.
Other Forms of Intellectual Property
Confidential Information
Confidential information is a term that is typically defined by contract. Excluded information typically includes information that is or becomes public, and information that the recipient already had knowledge of or developed independently.
Trade secret
A trade secret is information that derives independent economic value, actual or potential, from not being generally known to, and not being readily ascertainable by proper means by, other persons who can obtain economic value from its disclosure or use.
“Trade secrets can be easy to protect, but you must do something. If you do nothing to protect information as a secret it will be exceptionally difficult, perhaps virtually impossible, to convince a judge or jury that you even had a trade secret to begin with. Unfortunately, much protectable and valuable business information just isn’t protected as a trade secret because even minimal steps, such as stamping a document “Confidential” are not undertaken.” (Read More.)
