The recent $7.3
million jury award to the estate of the late soul star Marvin Gaye, from
singers Pharrell Williams and Robin Thicke, reminded the public of the power of
copyrights and the importance of protecting intellectual property.
Few small businesses
own a hit song, but many possess intellectual property. Everything from a
company’s name, logo and website to a restaurant’s recipes and a manufacturer’s
process may be important assets that can be protected with copyrights,
trademarks or even patents, said Frank Kozak, patent counsel for technology
giant Nokia and the former vice president and intellectual property counsel for
NAVTEQ. The flip side of this issue is that a small business can end up
defending itself against a charge of infringement unless it takes some
precautionary actions.
Trademarks
Kozak said the first
intellectual property issue a small business may face involves trademarks.
“Can I use my own
name? The answer generally is yes,” he explained. “If your name is Bob
Smith and you wanted to open a muffler shop, you could name your business Bob
Smith Mufflers. However, you can’t call your muffler shop Xerox Mufflers,
even though Xerox is not in the muffler business. Certain corporate names
are protected, and the more unique the name, the stronger the protection. Many
small businesses face a dilemma over what to call themselves. But I would
caution against using a name like Xerox or Pepsi because these are such unique
names that have such broad rights.”
He said that businesses
that do create new and unique names should check first to see if that name is
taken or protected. “That’s an easy and relatively inexpensive
thing to do for an intellectual property attorney and may cost a few hundred
dollars. But do it before you spend the money to make up signs and other
advertising and promotional materials. Business owners can try to conduct a
trademark search themselves, but trademarks are protected under both state and
federal laws and it can get complicated. It is much better to get the
advice of a professional.”
Kozak also warned
small business owners who are developing software to include copyright notices
in their work. He said software developers should be careful not to take
the work of others and incorporate it into their own, even accidentally.
Patents
Bill Maddocks, founder
and former president of Chicago-based MAC Medical Supply, a medical equipment
firm he later sold to his wife, had mixed experiences in navigating the world
of intellectual property. Maddocks said he obtained a copyright for a
new reporting format for a cardiac monitor, a copyright that protected his
product and gave his company with a unique competitive advantage. He advised
soliciting legal advice from reputable intellectual property attorneys or peers
who have insights into the process. Maddocks, who has
worked in the medical supply industry for more than 30 years, said with an
earlier company he had renewed patents at a cost of more than $12,000, only to
find that new technologies had made those products obsolete.
“Getting a patent can
be a very difficult and expensive process,” he said. “Those patents must be
maintained and you need to insure that you’re spending your money wisely.”
Craig Summerfield, a
patent attorney with the Chicago law firm of Lempia Summerfield Katz, said
small businesses need to protect their intellectual property and innovations. “A patent is a document that says you can keep other people from
doing or using something you created. Small businesses need to know that. It
can be an incredibly expensive financial burden to prevent somebody from using
that idea. Most people are honest and if they know there is a patent will try
to avoid infringing,” Summerfield said. He added that most
companies or individuals seeking patents are start ups that tend to have a
larger investment and recognize that their intellectual property is vital to
their future. Often these are software companies that invest greatly in patent
protections to help their business develop and grow.
Summerfield said
obtaining a patent is not a sure thing, but is easier when the patent claims
are really narrow. “But those types of patents typically have
less value,” he said. “A patent still needs to pass a number of tests. It needs
to be new and not obvious, but that’s sometimes a subjective determination.
There can be a lot of back and forth with the patent office and often after all
that you don’t end up with patent. Small business owners need to understand
that.”
He said getting a
patent application on file can cost between $6,000 and $10,000. Responses
to patent office rejection may involve changes to the claims that can cost
several thousand dollars more. “Those that are more technical in nature are
likely to cost closer to the $12,000 range,” he said, while pointing out that
the level of complication doesn’t usually affect the number of responses
because the patent office works with engineers and scientists familiar with the
subject.
Summerfield said he
sometimes hires searchers to find whether it’s worth it to spend the money
involved in a patent case. “Larger corporations rely on engineers and
scientists and don’t worry as much about searchers,” he said. “But for smaller
companies, it may be worth hiring a searcher.”
Confidentiality
Agreements
Amy Ziegler, an
intellectual property attorney with the Chicago law firm of Greer, Burns &
Crain, said small businesses that have been around a while and start ups tend
to have limited financial resources and while trying to attract investors
sometimes disclose information that comes back to haunt them. Ziegler said
there is a one-year grace period in the United States from when someone
discloses information about a product, service or process they are trying to
protect. “Way too often start ups unintentionally destroy their rights by
failing to sign confidentiality agreements,” Ziegler said.
She’s also seen
companies that have failed to learn whether slogans or trademarks they intend
to use have been trademarked by existing companies. “They end up wasting
resources,” she said. “But they usually won’t receive an infringement letter
from third party until their business is doing well. A little bit of preventive
trademark searching could save that grief. They can search on the trademark
office website or on Google.”
She said certain naming
conflicts are inevitable. If two restaurants across the country use the same
name, perhaps a family name, that shouldn’t be a problem because they don’t
compete and would not be mistaken for one another. “But you don’t want to copy
the look, menu and feel of the other restaurant, say, for example, the staff’s
uniforms,” she said.
Logos: Also Intellectual
Property
Ziegler said many
companies would be surprised to learn that they don’t even own their own
website or logo because the designers who created them maintain the rights.
“That happens all the time. You hire somebody and don’t even think about it, which
is why owners should demand in the original contact that all intellectual
property rights go to them. It saves a lot of headaches later. When you do it
after the fact, those designers want more money.”
Patrick Smith, an
intellectual property attorney with the Chicago office of Greer, Burns &
Crain, also speaks to small business groups. “The first challenge is getting
them to recognize that they probably already have intellectual property, but
don’t’ realize it,” Smith explained. “When you create your logo, trademark,
website and customer list, that’s proprietary information that you use in your
business to distinguish yourself from your competitors. You probably also have
some trade secrets. You can obtain protection for this, in some cases,
without going to see an intellectual property attorney or making a trip to the
patent or copyright office.”
He said one easy first
step is requiring employees to sign employment agreements that require them to
protect trade secrets, such as like customer lists and prohibiting them from
taking confidential materials outside of the office. “We hear stories all
the time about business owners whose employees left and started competing
companies using their former employers customer lists,” Smith said. “It’s
easier to make their cases in court if they’ve taken those small steps first.’’
Perform an Audit
He advised business
owners to perform a self-audit to examine what they have developed and created
and who actually owns it. Smith said one trade secret that surprises many is
recipes. “Your recipes can be very valuable assets. Large corporations fight
very hard to protect those recipes,” he said. “To protect what you have, you
have to be able to prove that you recognized early the importance of these
assets by steps like password protected computers and keeping recipes locked in
offices.”
He pointed out that
customer and vendor lists that include business contacts, price and client
orders are intellectual property.
Sriracha: A Cautionary
Tale
Smith cited the example
of David Tran, a Vietnamese émigré and founder of Huy Fong foods in California.
Tran created the popular Asian-style chile sauce, Sriracha, but failed to
secure a trademark. Now food companies around the world are creating their own “sriracha”
products, costing Tran millions of dollars in potential royalties or licensing
fees and freely using the name of his premier product without his permission.
Nokia’s Kozak pointed
out that protecting intellectual property shouldn’t stop with confidentiality
agreements and copyrights, trademarks and patents. With growing evidence of corporate
espionage and foreign countries seeking proprietary information, he urged small
businesses to improve their physical plant and data security to
safeguard valuable information.
