The E-commerce Leader

[00:00:00] Jason: If you create an aftermarket product for another. That’s legal, but you have to do it right. And you have to, interact with the primary product that you’re making aftermarket product for in keeping with the law. And if you don’t that bigger brand that you’ve made an aftermarket product for can, clip your wings real fast.
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[00:01:21] Intro: Hello, ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the e-commerce leader. We’re here to make you the best e-commerce leader. You can be. That sometimes means grasping the nettle on some difficult topics. Today, we’re talking about intellectual property defense defending our business. Isn’t as fun as growing it possibly, but it’s really important for the future income streams, stability for you and your family.
[00:01:42] And if you ever want to sell your business in future, critical. So intellectual parcel of defending your business and really you can think of it as an outgrowth of your branding strategy in very big sense. So then we’re going to talk about some action areas that you can focus on with a team, with your lawyer to create a really strongly defended business so that intellectual property tax and bounce off the steal of your defenses.
[00:02:07] Hopefully that’s not a fun image compared to the usual relationship to the law. Do you listen to take some notes as ever, if you wanted to find our notes, you can find them at the e-commerce leader.com and if you want to follow us for any discussions on panels with Chris green and Carl hammer, as well as Jason Miles on myself, you can find us at the calling app on Tuesdays at 8:00 AM.
[00:02:29] Pacific 11:00 AM Eastern or 4:00 PM UK time. But for the moment, let us see how you can defend your business against, in such a profit. Enjoy the show.
[00:02:38] Michael: Number five is utility patents. So this is sort of area where people often think of when they think of intellectual properties, patents, or patents.
[00:02:45] And, they often think of it as that. But it’s seven time-consuming. If you want to get a utility patent. So for example, if you’ve got something that I don’t know, crushes nuts, and I’m not an intellectual property attorney, so this may be a wrong example, but the action that it performs, like an iPhone stand in, it holds an iPhone, or it protects an iPhone case, protects an iPhone.
[00:03:02] That is a really hard thing to get, and that is very expensive. And the reason is because if you get it, it’s enormously powerful. And distorts the marketplace in your favor, but what you can get is not a utility department, but a design partner, which is much narrow in scope, but it means if you create a particular kind of iPhone case design that protects your phone, if you drop it on the floor from a great height or something like that, the exact design can be protected.
[00:03:26] And you could be looking at, a couple of thousand dollars to do that, which if you’re getting tens of thousands of dollars a year in profit can be extremely valuable thing to do. That’s my understanding. And he’s definitely some way you want to get good lawyers involved specialists.
[00:03:39] Good specialist, IP lawyers are gonna charge a few hundred bucks an hour. And a lot of cases, I think Robert Wright and his is much more affordable than that, but you should be willing to pay that if you’re going to go this route at all, because, amateur hour is not called for InDesign pages. Let’s put it that way.
[00:03:53] Jason: Yeah. I think this is really an important one for particularly, the. E-commerce sellers who are looking in the product categories on Amazon, let’s say, and trying to understand how to make a better mouse trap for the end user and how to take what’s existingly in the Mar existing in the marketplace and change.
[00:04:14] Tweak it redesign it re modify it and differently and come up with a new thing, a new thing that can be defended. And I think that’s important and, and I watched the shark tank and, here in the U S or Dragon’s den or whatever it’s called in Canada. That’s one of the first questions they always ask, do you have a design patent?
[00:04:30] Do you have utility patent, all that stuff. And so I think it’s important to think through that, to your point. Yeah. Okay. What’s what’s action area numbers.
[00:04:38] Michael: So area number six is, defending yourself against allegations. So really you need to get all the above stuff sorted out. So you’ve got your copyright registered, you’ve documented everything.
[00:04:49] You’ve got your patents, if you can, or patents, design patents, if you can, particularly to your point, if you’re tweaking existing designs. You really want to talk to an intellectual property lawyer to make sure that you’re not going to get taken to task by the people that you own, the original design, by the way, the idea that there’s a quote, generic stuff that out there that nobody has any rights to is a very dangerous thought it’s theoretically possible, but most stuff has been designed by humans.
[00:05:11] And somebody paid them and they’re quite often, have taken the trouble to, to protect their IP. And then you need to get your trademark in place documented. And again, to your point, if you’ve got some trademarks that you’ve been trading under for years, even if you haven’t got them registered and you’ve made it maybe a conscious decision not to register them, you could still document, everything you’ve got showing your usage.
[00:05:30] And giving you the rights so that if you get a attacked by somebody saying you haven’t got the rights to saying, you’ve got the paperwork to hand, you’ve got the registrations to hand and you can deal with it efficiently and with less stress than you otherwise would. Let’s put it that way.
[00:05:43] Jason: Yeah. I’ve had to do this one too. This one. Wasn’t fun. And, so I think the main tip here for my point of view is, defend against allegations. Via an intellectual property attorney who writes a formal response letter for you. If you get a letter from a bigger brand, and I wouldn’t be amateur hour on this one and do a DIY job on responding.
[00:06:04] And so the. Yeah, I guess I won’t tell the story on this one, but, it is important to understand what your rights are. And there is nuance in a lot of this area, which is why an IP attorney is so important. It depends on the type of product. It depends on the industry. It depends on the, so many variables and, so you know, there, there is, nuance here.
[00:06:24] We’re just one example of nuances. If you create an aftermarket product for another. That’s legal, but you have to do it right. And you have to, interact with the primary product that you’re making aftermarket product for in keeping with the law. And if you don’t that bigger brand that you’ve made an aftermarket product for can, clip your wings real fast.
[00:06:47] And this is there’s nuance and all this stuff, but defending against the allegations, I think, is best advice. And a good IP attorney. And, and that’s why you want to have a relationship with one. And, like in our case we have an intellectual property attorney. We work with her, name’s Heather, we interact with her maybe like once or twice a year.
[00:07:04] And, it’s very uncommon, but we know, or we’ve known her for a decade or more, and she’s our intellectual property attorney. So if we have issues, we know we have one. And, and it’s very valuable in that regard. So I do think this is an important nuance. And you can, you can get in real legal jeopardy.
[00:07:21] If you don’t reply, don’t respond, ignore stuff. Don’t act appropriately. And, so there you go. Okay. So what’s action area number seven?
[00:07:29] Michael: As quickly on that to your point. I think it’s very important to act, but not act rationally. Exactly the sentence. If you get, which is not a legal issue technically, but an Amazon account suspension or pre suspension warning, you need to act and not bury your head in the sand.
[00:07:41] That’s something I see. And you don’t want to be firing off an amateur letter, which is something I’ve seen a lot more. So to your point, yeah. Get the lawyers to write the letters a hundred percent. So action areas. Seven is in a way, much more pleasant back to defend. What you already have, and this is something that makes your business more and more defensible.
[00:07:58] Your future cashflow is defended and it makes it more sellable, which is wrap everything in as many layers of intellectual property as you can. Robert Wright, my friend, and he’s come to, to work with the mastermind in the past and real expert in this says that he was taught and he’s always taught everyone else.
[00:08:13] The more layers you wrap everything in the more protection you have. So if you have some product images, you can get the copyright there. But don’t forget to, get copyright in the images, get copyright in the texts. If you’ve got a product, then if you’ve got a good enough, product packaging, you could apply for patent and that’s unusual, but I know that Kyle’s done that.
[00:08:28] For example, as you’ve mentioned, as we get design patent on the product itself, get some. A trademark erupt around that and you could even have something like trade secret. If you are selling something with it, with a secret sort of recipe, that’s harder to deal with. And that’s a very specialist area, but the more you can wrap it in that the more people get entangled in a web.
[00:08:46] If they try and take you down, they’ve got to break through all the areas of, Intellectual property that you’ve wrapped things in. So that’s a beautiful thing. And I think that’s not as implemented as I think it could be by most people.
[00:08:56] Jason: Yeah, no, that’s interesting. Okay. What’s actionary number eight.
[00:09:00] Actionary
[00:09:00] Michael: eight is less sexy, but this documenting everything. So we’ve already talked about registering everything and then in a way you’re handing off the problem of documentation to a government body or some of the official bodies. But, it’s not very exciting stuff, but if you ever come to Sally or a business and you don’t have this documented, it can really get in the way, especially for a nervous seller or a nervous buyer, I should say of your business.
[00:09:20] But also, it means that if somebody attacks you, you don’t have it ready. It’s going to be much harder for you. It’s going to be harder for your lawyer to work on your behalf as well. So having documentation of usage, for example, of a product, which is a backup for. And documentation of the photographer, giving you the rights to a particular photo and having images of the photos and all the rest of it is a really fantastic plan as well.
[00:09:42] Jason: Yeah. Totally agree. All right, man, great list. Hopefully we have made this tolerable for those who are quickly bored with legal stuff, which again, we’re not attorneys, so go find your own, but, let’s bring this home, man. Any final thoughts or you want to summarize the list for us?
[00:09:57] Yeah,
[00:09:58] Michael: let’s just summarize the list. This is a, an action areas I’ve called it. Isn’t that these are mostly one-off actions, but if you work on it and you educate yourself, this is much more handleable than you might think. So number one, know the basics and be responsible as you say, don’t be your own lawyer.
[00:10:15] Learn about it, but get a good lawyer. On-site as you say, somebody you trust and you’ve known for ages is the best possible person. Number two action area, defend your copyright. One of the cheapest and easiest areas to do very underused and extremely powerful. So it’s a wonderful win-win I think action.
[00:10:30] Number three, register your trademark. And as long as you’ve made the judgment to your point that you think it’s worth registering, action, Erin, and before register your IP with all possible authorities. The MCA for copyright in the U S trademark authorities, USA, UK, in most places. Anything you can to make it as official and registered as possible, actually in number five, if you’ve got a really valuable product that you’ve created a custom product, then design patents are really important.
[00:10:54] And also double-checking the flip side of that, that you aren’t going to be, on the end of a claim for inferences in somebody else’s designed parts and systems. Tweaking and existing design quotes. Unquotes what is a tweak? Talk to your intellectual property dire. That’s really important.
[00:11:09] Excellent action area. Number six, defend against allegations. That’s I have the documentation ready to go on that now. Action area. Number seven, wrap things in as many layers of IP as you can to give you the most as a defense and that actually the area eight, not very sexy, but document everything.
[00:11:25] Related to this stuff. And then if somebody ever attacks you or indeed, you need to take somebody else stand, you are in a prime position to do so with minimal stress.
[00:11:32] Jason: I realized we just forgot a major area, which we’ve talked about in different shows, but I’ll just mention here as maybe a bonus number nine.
[00:11:39] And that is, w love your thought on this real quick, too. At the end here, when you’re in the process of creating a new concept or a new brand, you really want to, think through what you’re doing. Google it use tools like name, checker, use tools like your, in the United States, your state, legal offices to, see if there’s already registered businesses using that name.
[00:12:02] You want to scour the internet. I always tell people if you can’t get the top level domain, if it’s not available to, like whatever your idea is.com. Somebody else owns that domain at least. And you better keep looking. And then the other nuance there is, if there’s, something super close to what you want to do, move on.
[00:12:22] Don’t, if one, one letter difference is not make a brand good brand idea, you really want to be unique, standout, and it’s hard work to create a brand. And I see so many people who make brands. Who are. Have a thought of phrase, a concept that candidly will never be a real brand. It’ll never stand out with a emotive power in the minds of a consumer, because it’s just a copy of very common words or ideas.
[00:12:51] And even if it’s legally owned, it’s not a good brand in the mind of the consumer. So that step is really important, I think. And we’ve done. Tons of podcast episodes about branding and all of the details and nuance that goes into that. But I wanted to just mention here is a bonus idea here.
[00:13:07] Cause I think that’s where a lot of people get in trouble is with. Original intellectual property ideas that then become, just a minefield of trying to understand their rights and defending and et cetera, et cetera. Yeah. And I
[00:13:21] Michael: guess again, to a point that came up earlier, this is a sign that your intellectual property weaknesses, or just the Canadian.
[00:13:29] In the coal mine that actually you’ve got a terrible brand idea. Anyway, cause if you’re copying or if it’s easily copyable or, it hard to distinguish from another brand, that’s essentially a trademark issue, but that’s the principle behind trademark is passing off is the offense. So in other words, if something could be from you and it could be for somebody else and they can’t sell the flipping difference, that’s a branding or marketing nightmare anyway.
[00:13:50] So to your point that there is not really, wrap this up with a bow there isn’t really a conflict between. Getting into the details of intellectual property, not from the principal level, not that the nasty details which lawyers pay to deal with. Isn’t really separate at all. From the idea of creating a brand that is distinct in the customer’s minds, which people love trust and will pay more money to get the products from.
[00:14:12] Really speaking. If you think of IP as a giant extension of branding and marketing efforts, then maybe that’s more of a palatable way to sugarcoat that pill for marketing led entrepreneurs.
[00:14:23] Jason: And it totally is. That’s what it is really. The law is one thing, but in the mind of the consumer and the public presentation of your product or your brand and all that stuff, that’s the whole heart of it.
[00:14:36] And anyway, I think that’s the right phrasing for all of this. Is it a big extension? Public facing, brand and, presentation the customer. So there you have it. As always, man, this has been a fantastic conversation. It’s an honor to hang out with you and do these, these episodes.
[00:14:51] If you’re listening to us, at this very moment on the podcast player of your choice, we’d love to have you hit the like button, the whatever button follow, however you can affirm and support the show would be a tremendous help to. And we’re really honored to be able to serve the e-commerce seller community.
[00:15:07] Man, our show is just growing. It’s grown on Spotify. It’s growing on the call-in app and we’re just honored to be able to serve more and more e-commerce operators with insights perspective and our points of view. And so thanks everybody for listening to the show today, Michael, as always thank you for the fun.
[00:15:25] Thank
[00:15:25] Michael: you. Yeah. Really enjoy our conversations. I always look forward to this weekend conversations. That’s so thought provoking and that’s, you’ve got the gift of looking at things from a very strategic perspective. And I think that’s hopefully the missing piece that we’re there to serve. So if you’re listening or watching, by the way, don’t forget to join us on calling, which Jason just mentioned.
[00:15:42] iPhone only app at the moment. I’m afraid if you’re an Android or they’re using. But if you have got an iPhone come and join us on Tuesdays 8:00 AM Pacific 11:00 AM. Eastern 4:00 PM UK time. And we have Chris green, Kyle Haimer and then Jason and myself having our hot takes for about 20, 25 minutes on a given topic, which is good, fun.
[00:16:00] And really the listenership is blown up for that. Hasn’t it. So that’s something, if you want to join in a slightly more interactive environment, do come and check it. Yeah.
[00:16:08] Jason: Top 10 show in our category right now. I think we’re number seven at the moment. So yeah, crazy cool. And it’s fun to have everybody hanging out there with us and following the show and listening.
[00:16:17] So thanks everybody for that. All right. See you, buddy. Okay.
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