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There are many, many reasons why it’s smart for an entrepreneur to learn about intellectual property law.  Here are ten of my favorites:

1.  To keep the intellectual property that you create for your new company free of ownership claims by your former employer

Watch out if you’re working on your new venture while employed by another company in the same industry.  Later claims by your former employer to your startup’s IP can land you in court and ruin your new company.

Knowing how to carve out and keep the intellectual property rights to what you create for your new company can be critical for your success.  It’s important to learn about trade secret law and what you can use from your prior jobs.

There are key steps you can take to narrow the net of what your former employer may claim, especially if you live in California.

2.  To increase the odds that you can use your company and product names without being stopped by another trademark owner

After picking names that you love for your business, products and services; incorporating your company; building a website; and working hard to promote your brand,

IT SUCKS TO HAVE A TRADEMARK OWNER CLAIM THAT YOU ARE INFRINGING!

Warning.  Just because the dot com domain is available, it doesn’t mean that you can freely use the name.

Just because the Secretary of State for one state allows you to use a business name, it doesn’t mean you can freely use the name nationally or on the Internet.

And no, your corporate lawyer probably didn’t check for conflicting trademarks.

Learning about trademark law and doing some basic groundwork before starting  your business can save you from big headaches and expenses down the road.

If you love your name, think about registering your mark so you can increase the odds of being able to use it.  Few people want to start over from scratch.

3.  To make sure your startup owns the intellectual property created by its founders, employees, vendors, and independent contractors

This is where many startups screw up if they don’t understand basic IP law.  Some of the legal rules about IP ownership are counterintuitive and complicated.

You should be aware that you may not own what you pay others to create for your new company if you don’t take precautions.

It seems so wrong but it’s true.

I’ve spent years doing intellectual property ownership clean up.  Some startups were able to make some basic changes and turn things around.  Others got burned — to the ground.

4.  To own the rights to your logo

Your logo is the symbol of your company.  Your hard work and promotion make it valuable and it’s usually worth the trouble to protect it.  If you don’t have a written copyright assignment by the person or company who designed it, you don’t own the copyright.  You need an assignment to register a copyright or trademark.

Professional design studios will assign the copyright to you without a hassle.  Beware of designers who won’t do a copyright assignment or balk at the suggestion.

5.  To own your company website

This is similar to number 4.  If you don’t have a written, signed copyright assignment for the design of your website, you don’t own the copyright to the site.  This may create problems in the future and it will prevent you from registering your website with the Copyright Office.

Bizarrely, if you don’t own the copyright and you change your site,  you may be guilty of copyright infringement.

If you already have a site, check on the footer to see if the design company is claiming the copyright.  Does their name appear after the copyright symbol?

Pragmatically, caring about IP ownership to your website depends in part on how much you spent for the design; the complexity of the design; your commitment level to the look of your site; your type of relationship with the designer; and how hard it would be to build a new site.

If it was expensive, design intensive, hard to replicate and you love it, pay attention to copyright ownership.

Further, to avoid infringement, make sure you have a license to use or own the copyright to every element on your website.

If your site is expensive, it’s important to be aware of what software was used as the foundation for your site and the related licenses.

6.  To minimize the chance of liability for IP infringement

Ignorance is not bliss.  It can get you sued.  And as some unfortunate software developers have learned, trade secret misappropriation can land you in jail.

7.  To get legal protection for intellectual property that is created for your startup

Different laws have different requirements for obtaining legal protection.  To get protection, you must follow the rules and take specific actions.  You don’t want to blow it and lose protection for your million dollar invention or product because you didn’t know what you needed to do.

8.  To understand open source licenses

Many technology companies incorporate open source software into their products.  What you can do with the new work you create that incorporates the open source code can vary dramatically.  Some open source licenses prevent you from selling your new product.  Beware unless you plan to give your product away for free.

9.  To protect your IP when you are doing a joint venture

When you work with another company or developer on a joint project or product, it is important to use more than a handshake.  It’s important to know what to do to keep the lines of IP ownership clear or you may end up with the default legal rules that create a mess you never intended.

Arguments because of an initial lack of clarity can ruin even the best friendships.

10.  To not scare off potential investors because the ownership of your startup’s intellectual property is a mess

The core assets of many technology startups are based on intellectual property.  I’ve done due diligence for venture capitalists and other types of investors and I’ve seen some horrible, dirty messes.  Don’t scare off potential investors because you haven’t taken the time to do what you need to do to have clear lines of intellectual property ownership.

Right now, you may not care about potential investors or buyers.  But if your startup is wildly successful, you may care when it’s too late to fix things.

Later posts will explain each category above in detail.  I will share valuable information about intellectual property law and some concrete steps that you can take to help your business succeed and increase the value of your work.

P.S.  You may want to subscribe to make sure you catch what you need to know most.

With thanks to www.iplawforstartups.com.   To see the original article please click here.

Remember, that the only dumb question is the one never asked. If you have any questions or comments, I look forward to them, please email or call me.

Cheers.

Allan

RESQBug.com Technical Services and PRAD Enterprise

“Managing Your Technology for Improved Workplace Performance”

c: 416.464.1508

e: allan@resqbug.com

t: http://twitter.com/resqbug

Visit us on the Web at http://www.resqbug.com

This article is for information purposes only.  It is recommended that individuals consult with an IT professional before acting on any information contained in this article. The opinions stated are those of Allan Waddington and not a reflection of any company he currently works with or has in the past.

“If you think it’s expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur.” -Red Adair

Sometimes a person says one sentence that just sticks with you and is so perfect that it defines a whole category of behavior.  Mark Pincus, the CEO of Zynga, riffed on the phrase “be the CEO of your job” in a board meeting a year or so ago.  It stuck with me and I’ve thought about it many times since.

On Sunday, the NY Times did a great “Corner Office” interview with Mark titled Are You a C.E.O. of Something? Among other things it explored the idea of being the CEO of your job.  Fred Wilson – also an investor in Zynga – wrote a post on Sunday titled Empowering Your Team which talks about one aspect of this.  But Fred left out a great example from one of Mark’s earlier companies (Support.com) which really nails this concept.

“We had this really motivated, smart receptionist. She was young. We kept outgrowing our phone systems, and she kept coming back and saying, “Mark, we’ve got to buy a whole new phone system.” And I said: “I don’t want to hear about it. Just buy it. Go figure it out.” She spent a week or two meeting every vendor and figuring it out. She was so motivated by that. I think that was a big lesson for me because what I realized was that if you give people really big jobs to the point that they’re scared, they have way more fun and they improve their game much faster. She ended up running our whole office.”

Think about the conceptual progression.  First, the CEO (Mark) had to have to courage to make the young, motivated, smart receptionist “be the CEO of her job.”  Then, when the problem was put to him (“Mark, we’ve got to buy a whole new phone system”), Mark resisted doing something so many entrepreneurs (and executives, and managers) do – namely to “manage” the problem.  Instead of spending a lot of his time solving the problem, or setting up a committee to spend a month figuring out the phone system, or asking someone more senior to the receptionist to figure it out, he gave her the responsibility of solving the entire problem.  He anointed her “CEO of her job” – as the receptionist, she was the one that felt the most pain from the inadequate phone system and was probably in the best position to figure out a solution.

In this case, the notion of “be the CEO of your job” was in the culture of the organization so the receptionist – who was in Mark’s words young, motivated, and smart – took this seriously, spent real time figuring out the solution, and then solved it.  I’m sure the early culture of Support.com was “don’t spend a lot of money” so the financial constraint, while vague, was probably understood.  While there’s plenty more behind the scenes in the story, the young reception clearly “leveled up” (it’s impossible not to use game-speak when talking about Zynga) and ended up running the whole office.

I work with CEO’s every day.  So I’m naturally wired to encourage them to be CEO of their own job.  While this is pretty meta, it’s an important starting point as I already think this way all the time.  I’m certainly not perfect and have moments where I just jump in and try to solve a specific problem, but most of the time I let the CEO’s be CEO.  However, when I contemplate this, I realize I haven’t done a good job of encouraging the CEO’s to make everyone in their organization CEO of the job.  Some CEO’s do this naturally and – not surprisingly – these are generally the highest achieving companies.

Pause and ponder the idea.  Assuming you are in an entrepreneurial organization, are you being the CEO of your job?  Is this culturally (and functionally) acceptable?  Do you get rewarded for taking risks and succeeding (or failing) like your CEO does?  If not, would you be more effective if you did?

Now, if you are the CEO of an entrepreneurial organization, do you encourage everyone in the company to be CEO of their job?  Is this culturally (and functionally) acceptable?  Do they get rewarded for taking risks and succeeding (or failing) like you do?  If not, would they be more effective if they did?

If you applied the lens of “be the CEO of your job” to you job, would you behave any differently?

With thanks to www.feld.com.   To see the original article please click here.

Remember, that the only dumb question is the one never asked. If you have any questions or comments, I look forward to them, please email or call me.

Cheers.

Allan

RESQBug.com Technical Services and PRAD Enterprise

“Managing Your Technology for Improved Workplace Performance”

c: 416.464.1508

e: allan@resqbug.com

t: http://twitter.com/resqbug

Visit us on the Web at http://www.resqbug.com

This article is for information purposes only.  It is recommended that individuals consult with an IT professional before acting on any information contained in this article. The opinions stated are those of Allan Waddington and not a reflection of any company he currently works with or has in the past.

“If you think it’s expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur.” -Red Adair