From Idea to Profit: Why and How Smart Businesses Protect What They Create -Tracy Hoffman

Your ideas can be your biggest business asset—but only if you protect them.

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00:00 Can ideas be protected? And Is there any value in an idea? I'm sure that many business coaches will agree with me That  An idea itself is pretty useless. It's Nothing before you do something about it. Like when you I have thousands of ideas and I put them down in a notepad and I forget about them and they're useless. If someone else come up with the idea, they might also have the same idea but make something Totally different about With it So I would say that ideas themselves are Not worth a lot. They don't have a lot of value And you cannot protect the idea itself It's the execution of the idea that's where all the value lies. Like the way you execute the idea, the branding in your  Business The way you create a product, the design The way something functions And Maybe if it's something creative, if you put it down on print, if you write it down or create music or make a video or text Photos That's where the value lies, not in the idea itself. And no, you cannot protect ideas. Many businesses are afraid.  

01:19 To talk about their ideas because they're afraid someone will steal it And Should you talk about your ideas Or is it a Daniel I would say yes and no Yes, it's good to talk about the idea Or yes, someone can steal it, but also it's good to talk about the idea So you can get input from other businesses and you can understand the market better, you can understand your target audience better, etc But there are some things that you should not talk about When it comes to Your ideas because they may prevent you from getting the protection later. And that's You have something that can be a patent Something that has a technical solution to a problem And I will address it a little bit in the end if I have time. But today we're going to focus on Something that you as a business need to know. And it doesn't matter if you have a very small business or a very big business Or you're going to start a business. You need to know these things because if you don'tYou may lose Everything in your business if it's really bad. But you may also just may lose a lot of profit or.  

02:33 A lot of opportunities by not knowing How to manage and protect what's in your business. So that's why I chose to talk about the topic from Idea to Profit. How and why smart businesses protect what they create  My name is Tracy Gigi Hoffman. I Have been working with intellectual property Rights for 11 years and I used to work with intellectual property Training Programs for the least developed countries  And When I started my business, I've been doing something called Or I've been doing trademark registrations and I have also done something called IP scan, where I go through Whole business models and help them with business strategy. But Mainly I help them to find what kind of intellectual property Assets they have and how they can manage it in a good way so they don't lose money  Or get in big legal issues and also so they can find new business models and make money, because that's what you can do if you have registrar rights. It's also very important To know how to manage your intellectual property rights to get funding if you're someone in a startup phase or you're going for funding To have investors. If you don't have Protected and registered rights.  

03:49 There's really not much an investor can invest in, especially if you're selling services It's more than 80% of the business value lays in intellectual property So it's something you need to manage. And I'm going to talk About today mainly how to register and protect the brand, the trademark. And I will also talk about copyright because that's something that we all need to manage Regardless of what kind of business you have.    And as I said, if I have time, I will address the other areas Short or briefly too And I will also address what the. Most common mistakes are so you can avoid that in your business And why is it important with the registration? So we start with the brand, the trademark that why is it important to have it? It's because if you Don't register your name as a trademark and someone else registered the same name  You might not be able to lose it because now you infringe in their rights So this means also that You may have to close down All your digital channels, your website, your social media, et cetera, so you don't differentiate their rights. In best case, that's all that happens. In worst case You may also get sued if they think that you have made money out of using their Brand and their trademark.  

05:08 What can be protected as a trademark? So it can be the name, its logo, can be taglines, video Sounds Sometimes colors and fragrances, but it's not as usual. And this may also vary a little bit in different countries But so also see this video as Education, not legal advice. So before you take action on your intellectual property, always make sure to talk to your Local legal experts So some of the most common mistakes when people approach me and they want to protect their brand as a trademark is that. It's too descriptive. Some Businesses Choose a name that describes what they do. And if you do that, it might not be able to Be protected as a trademark. And this is why it's because  Everyone is supposed to be able to use A word that describes your business. So if I would have a business called the marketing agency and I'm working with marketing I cannot protect it because someone else having a marketing Agency Should be able to also Call it the same. But if I add, for instance, Tracy's marketing Then It may be Standing out enough for me to protect it as a trademark. This also, I think varies a little bit in Europe. If you register in the us how rough they are, but Special. But usually if you add a name, this also helps You can use Descriptive things as taglines instead for the business and just have an original name. If you think about the big brands like Coca Cola or Apple or  Spotify It doesn't say anything about what they do in the business. It doesn't say that Coca Cola is a soda, it doesn't say that Spotify has music, etc. So Think about.  

07:07 Finding a unique name For your brand Because that will give you a better protection. Because also if you get Something that's a bit descriptive, if you manage to get that at the trademark, it still has a very weak protection Meaning that someone Could start using it and you can't really process around it anyway The second mistake that many people make is that they make a name that's too similar to something that's already existing on the market. So that means it's infringing in someone else's name  Sound similar or look similar You might not be able to register as a trademark Also With this is the problem with making logos from templates. I seen a lot in different Facebook groups, entrepreneurs making their own logo from a template And if you make it and I make it, then We might have the exact same logo. And that means whoever register it first will get it and the other one will infringe in the first one and you will have problems and cannot use it anymore. So avoid Logo templates with AI. I am not sure how it's going to be How much similar they are You don't have the copyright protection. We're going to talk more about copyright later with the logo. But you can protect it as a trademark if it's  Not  Infringing in someone else's source It's not as similar to someone else. That could work.  

08:34 But I would always recommend to talk to a graphic designer and get someone that's really Good at making one to make sure And a trademark can be protected when you register, it's usually protected for 10 years and then you can renew it every 10 years. So you just pay the fee and you can creep the brand forever We're going to talk about copyright now So copyright is everything that you put out in social media It's The text, the music The Videos, the photos Everything that goes out in Sound podcasts Everything that goes out is copyright. And You don't need a registration for copyright. As soon as it's created, you own it So that means that For instance this video, I own the copyright for it already. I don't need to register anywhere. But some countries you can do copyright registration You can also do it online. There's a platform I'm working with, for instance, that you just do drag and drop and you have it there. And you can also monitor it Globally. And this could be another advantage if You need to prove what date you created Your copyrighted things. If it's a legal process.  

09:49 Who had something first But in general you don't have to register copyright to own it. And the ownership of copyright is I think it's between 50 to 100 years After the creator has Died or passed away. So That's a very long time. You have the protection of copyright and it varies in different countries. So the most normal thing is that It's 70 Years after the After or the creator dies So the family can have benefits from making money. If we take Osborne for instance now whatever rights he owned and what he created His family Will still have like the rights  From his work for 17 years, probably after he passed now So The common mistakes when it comes to  Copyright is that many businesses Don't know how to Make agreements around it. So you don't know what you're buying and selling. This is for instance if we go back to the music industry.  

11:02 Someone might have a song and they sell it To someone And they don't know what kind of rights they sell. So maybe they sell a one time fee, they get paid one time for a song And then someone uses this song and it blows up and it makes millions Then The one, the Original creator don't get any money because they made a bad Agreement So it's very important like if it's something like that, that you make a licensing agreement that Will get you paid a revenue from what someone makes from it And also when used, when you buy copyright yourself, you want to buy also sometimes if I buy photos for my business, I want to buy the exclusive rights for them because I don't want  Them to sell the same photo for another business, so they will use the same Photos. And My clients would think that we are working together or something So it's very important to know what rights you're buying and selling when it comes to copyright. And also sometimes when there's no agreement Between Businesses. I know one business bought software, for instance, for the business. That's crucial for the business But there's no agreement between them. So if the creator of the software Would be You know, wanting their  Software back or not letting the business use it anymore, they don't really have a business anymore. So it's super important to manage the copyright and make agreements. Also Someone creates a product for you or something like a recipe Make sure To agree on who owns the right. And if the one producing it, can they sell it to other clients or is it your exclusive product that you can only choose Selling? And Another Very interesting issue with intellectual property and like with copyright, is that AI and copyright I've seen a lot of coaches and mentors saying that you can write a book in two days producing AI and You can also create all these images, et cetera. So the problem with that is that To own copyright, it needs to be created by a human Like human creative Has to be like the foundation Of it. And if it's not There's no owner There have been some discussions about that. AI. If I create something with AI, maybe the creator of the software, the AI software is the owner of what I create.  

13:41 But right now I would say that if you create something with AI, you don't own The rights as a creator with it, which means You can't really sell licenses for it, you cannot make money from it, you cannot put up.  Business models around it that you usually can do with copyright So that's a big riskAnd.   Also With AI, the way AI is created, you know, it's by You, you, you teach The, the machine to, to you put in a lot of Works, right? So if you put out in a lot of text, you put in a lot of books and about Music, et cetera, and then AI creates something from everything you put in, right? So here you also have a risk that if you make something A song or a book or something That AI created it out of big parts of someone else's work. And that means that you will infringe in their rights and get in legal trouble with that So be very careful with using AI. I love using AI myself for doing marketing text and etc. So For that, I think it's wonderful. But if it's something you're going to sell Don't create it with AI. If you use it as a tool to edit the text that you have created, that's fine As long as it's you that make it, as long as it's not you putting in a lot of prompt And AI doing the Creation itself And also When you have created it with AI, anyone can copy it and can use it and alter it. So if you would make likeSay a book with a lot of images in it Someone else can just copy it and make it their own and make more books with the same image. So That's the risk of it.  

15:35 So I will briefly touch on two other areas and that's patterns. As I mentioned before, patterns has to be new.  It's a technical solution To problem So It's innovation More innovation. But it can also. It doesn't have to be machine. Like a zipper is one of the first Patents. So it doesn't have to be something that you know Working machine, but it has to be a technical solution to a problem. And Before Starting a patent application, you need to do a freedom to operate Research. And you should also do a news Research like see What's on the market already, because A lot of People have put a lot of money in research and developing products that's already existing. And that's just a waste of time and my money. So always when you have an idea for a patent Make sure to check what's already on the market. And also by learning From that You can.  

16:36 Also develop your product better, because maybe you get ideas from their patents. So when you do a patent registration It gets official also. So that's the price you pay for the exclusive fee that everyone can see it and can make it later when you don't have the patent anymore And it has to be new. Nobody can have heard about it before when you put it out When you do the registration. So don't Publish anything about something you want to patent And a patent is only a technical solution to a problem. It's not trademark, it's not the You cannot, you cannot patent a brand, you cannot patent a song, you cannot patent a design.    Or you have design patents is calling us, I think, but. But that's another registration, right? So patents are patents Because Sometimes people call everything patents. Copyright is not paten So be aware of that And then we have design patents, or We call it the design protection. It calls different in different But it's if something Has a certain design.  

17:40 And you can do a registration for that And usually it has to be also within a certain time it has to be fairly new, not as patents never known, but fairly new. So within One year usually of when you first show it And some things that you can do a design registration from is also protected by copyright just when you have created it But it is different Registrations. And if you have something that you're really going to Have For a long time and you're going to make a lot of money from, I would do a decent registration. But you have some protection with you around copyright So for summary for all of this like and yeah, so also with Patents can be quite expensive So if you don't want to do a patent registration, you can also do trade secrets. You can do trade secrets for a lot of things Things in your business. If you have processes or knowledge that you don't want to share, you can do trade secrets which mean that you have agreements. So meaning that other people cannot Learn from like learn know about it Outside of business So to summarize everything, what you need to know about intellectual property rights Before starting anything.    Search what's already on the market Like if you for the brand and everything Brand and patents especially Search what's already on the market so you have a freedom to operate, meaning that you don't infringe in someone else's rights and don't get in legal trouble for that.    Know where your market is. Like if you have Something that you want to register There's no world registration. You cannot do a world trademark or a world patent. You have to be strategic about what countries you want to register in. Because there's a fee for every country or region you Gonna register in And You have something called priority time. Usually when you do a registration you have within six months or something. If you do a registration Within that time you will have like the first date. So when you do the registration Try different markets and then decide where you need to go and where you need to register If you're in the European Union.  

19:59 Right now In In Sweden at least. But I think in other European countries there's something called SME fund And They might give you discounts on registration fees for trademarks and something called IP scan where you can get help to get manage all the intellectual property rights So to sum everything8 Yes Ideas can be protected when you have executed them You need to make sure to not infringe in other people's rights Make sure to Make something out of the idea so you have something to protect before you go to market before you get funding, etc And And that's the way you can create. Also, when you have the registration, you can create revenue by doing licensing agreements and having other people using your intellectual property. Right. And pay you for it So that could also make a kind of a passive income And If you want to learn more about Intellectual property rights and business management and business models, et cetera, you can follow me in my social medias. There's going to be links there. And I also have an Ebook here that's free that will tell you more about how to do a trademark search So you know if it's free to register and Everything you need to know about register a trademark So thank you so much for listening this far And I hope I will see you Later in one of my social channels. And Best of luck with the rest of the training.