Q: What do your company’s research and development initiatives, your personal mutual fund portfolio and 401(k) fund, and that beautiful beach house you purchased 20 years ago have in common?
A: They are all investments.
Q: What do Sherlock Holmes, Sam Spade and Mike Hammer have in common?
A: They are all detectives.
Q: What is an intellectual property lawyer?
A: An intellectual property lawyer is an investment and a detective. These lawyers can help you gain market share, keep competitors away, choose a brand name, provide a royalty stream for many years and help you decide the best way to spend your money.
But how is a lawyer an investment? I can hear you now — all you know is that this so-called “investment” is telling you how much legal fees will cost you without any guarantee that you will earn a dime. Then it seems they spend money to advise you on how to spend money — some investment. Unfortunately, one of the hard truths in every business is that you have to spend money to make money. And you have to spend it wisely, effectively and efficiently.
An intellectual property attorney is usually retained when your engineer tells you of an invention that must be protected from the competition or when you just came up with something you believe is your ticket to retirement. Either way, the first step is to protect your idea, choose a brand name and copyright your work.
Your IP attorney will patent your idea, help you find and secure a brand name and register the copyright. A patent allows you to keep others away, earn a royalty or sell your idea for a lump sum. When a brand name is trademarked, it is yours forever, and everyone will think of you when they see it. When a copyright is registered, it stops others from copying your work, and if someone infringes your copyright, you may even recover your attorney’s fees in the legal proceedings.
So how is an IP attorney a detective? Is it legal? You bet. Your IP attorney can discover what your competition is doing, what they are not doing, where they are going and what they have given up on. They can also tell you where your competitor is most vulnerable in the marketplace and why.
Heard of an invisible fence to keep animals in? What about an invincible fence to keep competitors out? Legal sleuthing can create an invisible fence to protect your technology and ideas. By the time your fence becomes visible, it could be invincible.
Finally, think about spending your money wisely. Which is more valuable, a trade secret or a trademark? The recipe for a Hershey chocolate bar or the Hershey trademark? The formula for a corrosion resistant composition or the product name associated with it?
In the first example, give me the Hershey mark. I can find a recipe for chocolate, but I can’t find instant buyers for my chocolate recipe with an unknown name.
In the second example, I need the composition formula. If I don’t have the product, the trademarked name is irrelevant.
The two questions yield different answers. Your new investment detective can help you evaluate decisions like this, as well as give advice on how to spend your time, energy, talents and money most effectively. JOHN M. SKERIOTIS is a partner in the law firm of Brouse McDowell. Reach him at (330) 535-5711 or [email protected].
