When it comes to running a business, it is very important that you know the essence of your business plan as well as trademarks. I had a chance of listening to 3 iTunes podcast in which I encourage you as a start up business owner to review.
1.
Christine James speaks on Trademark Law and the basic principles of what a trademarks is. She explains how trademarks are a brand or more like a source indicator, identifier that consumers will identify you with. Trademarks function to guarantee the quality and demand for your product. Words, logos, shapes, colors, are all trademarks. Many companies register color trademarks for their company. Take a look at UPS and the color brown, which they have registered for their business. Larry Nodene who is from Atlanta speaks on Trademark dispute resolution. When filing a motion to dispute, no longer mail anything out file it online. Use the online site sources to your advantage. After hearing the brief story that Nodene spoke about with filing a trademark case for a company that he use to work for and it never reaching the courts before the due date. The story sounded like a catastrophe, although he end up working things out, it would have been easier to just file it online opposed to mailing it out. I can understand exactly what he means about the mailing system. USPS is not the best way to get things out anymore, it is as if the have lost interest in trying to get important documents to the right place.
2.
Creighton Frommer spoke on Copyright Law and the basics of it. The highlights of his speech were that of the poor mans copyright. A poor mans copyright, is when you place your work in an envelope, mail it to yourself and never open it. Seems like a legitimate way of protecting your creativity if you ever needed to file a case against someone for taking your idea. For many years this is something that I myself believed was true and your work would be copyrighted if you did it. Well according to Frommer this theory is not true at all. He also explained copyrights when creating a website and the copyright year of the work. If you were to create or change something on your website for a certain year and then decide to work on it a few years later. Do not change the copyright date to the year that you have updated information. What is in your best interest to do is keep the original year it was created and just add commas for the existing years you changed something.
3.
Walter & Christina Palmer give speeches on trademark acts in the country of Brazil. They talk about the Olympic Act and what it protects in the city of Rio for the 2016 Olympic games. This Olympic Act protects graphics of Olympic signs, emblems, flags, and all names within the 2016 Olympic games as well as domain names. The primary reason for the Olympic Act is to help with the problem of ambush marketing. Ambush marketing is when the brand attempts to associate itself with the team or event without buying the rights to do so. What I didn’t know is that, in Brazil it is illegal to purchase a CD in store make a copy of the music files and place it on your iPod. This is something that we as Americans do on a daily basis. So they are in the midst of proposing changes to the Copyright laws out there. Brazil has one of the most restrictive copyright laws in the world. To hear these podcast feel free listen to them via iTunes below are the titles:
Christine James on Trademark Law 1:03:45 9/29/06
Creighton Frommer on Copyright Law 50:54 9/30/06
LexisNexis® Copyright & Trademark Law and Patent Law Communities Podcast featuring Walter W. Palmer and Cristina Pinheiro Palmer 34:51 12/20/10
MoSneaks
