Business Innovators Radio - Artworks Zen Wasame: Demystifying the Complexities of Copyright, Trademarks, and Patents

Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to Business Innovators Radio, featuring industry influencers and trendsetters, sharing proven strategies to help you build a better life right now. Hi, everyone. This is Dr. Tammy Passer, and today we have a very special guest, Zen Wasemi. She is an intellectual property expert and the driving force behind the artworks training program, the only. ABA approved postgraduate legal incubator and residency program. Zen is here to shed some light on the importance of intellectual property, how it supports creatives, and much more. Welcome Zen. Hi, Tammy. Dr. Tammy. Nice to see you. Nice to see you. I have interviewed you before, but it's been a few years, and I'm really excited to find out, you know, what's happening. Because I think when we first talked, you may have just been starting the incubator. So now it's been around now for some years.

Starting point is 00:01:13 So that's really interesting. So let's just get started. And can you tell me a little bit about your background and what inspired you to specialize in intellectual property? What inspired me to... It was just life's journey, little pieces, you know, little steps along the way that will just, I believe that will lead you to where you're supposed to be. So I started college doing biochemistry. I was going to be a doctor. And then was it senior year?

Starting point is 00:01:48 Or the end of junior year, they rolled out the cadaver and I knew that wasn't for me. But I still love science. So I went to graduate school. and I just got introduced to toxicology. I love science. And while in graduate school, I was working at the state capital. I'm environmental lobbyist because I was doing environmental toxicology, and I actually began to work with, this is in Illinois, work with Barack Obama.

Starting point is 00:02:21 And I wouldn't say he mentored me, but we worked closely in that space together. other. You know, I was a young, what was I, 22 when he was already a senator, but I remember him saying to me, I know you're studying the science, but you're so good with policy. Why do you think about how you can affect people's lives in a deeper way? Because you don't seem so passionate about, you know, being an elaborate, is what we called it. So right away, I went to law school. I wouldn't say I was inspired to do intellectual property at that time. I was just, you know, inspired to study the law. So I have science and I have the law, both of them percolating in my head. So it was the last year of law school, I was introduced to intellectual property and that's where it all

Starting point is 00:03:09 came together because then I realized, oh, this is an area of practice where you have to have all this technical specialized knowledge that not a lot of attorneys have, right? Not a lot of attorneys go to undergrad for biochemistry or graduate school for environmental toxicology. thinking, I'm going to have this practice area. So that's how that all came to be that I was able to get the academic support for this practice area. And here we are. Isn't that interesting how all those little things, you start off in a totally different area and then it grows into something that you probably never imagined all with just maybe someone just saying to you, well, maybe you should look at this and then moving forward.

Starting point is 00:04:00 I find that fascinating. So why is intellectual property so important in today's business landscape? Intellectual property is extremely important. What people don't realize is if you don't have a business unless you have IP. You're either borrowing it, creating it, or stealing it, period. And, you know, if it's in public domain, you could be, it's still, you're borrowing intellectual property. So it's important to recognize that connection, particularly when you are creating and you want

Starting point is 00:04:36 to make sure that your intellectual property is protected. Even if you decide not to use a particular form of IP, because maybe you've used it and now you're not using it again, you know, it's on the shelf is what I call it collecting dust. I've been able to talk to clients about how to monetize IP that. sitting on the shelf, how you can license it out, how you can revamp it, even if you don't want to touch it, somebody sees value in it always. 100% of the time I'm able to speak with clients about how to monitor what they've created. Once it's protected, it gives you that freedom to make more money from it. So let's talk a little bit about the types of intellectual property

Starting point is 00:05:22 protections or IP protections. I know there's copyright, trademark, patents. Can you expand on each one of those and maybe something I missed? Okay. So yeah, well, we think about common, the most common right now, everybody's talking about trademarks. So, you know, a trademark is that thing that makes you know the source of the goods or the services. So it could be a word, a design or a wording design fuse together. It could be a design, like I use the golden arches. When you see that, no matter where you are, you know exactly what you're going to get. It's a way to put your stamp out in the market so people start recognizing the quality, or at least an expectation. Like, no matter where you are on the planet, you see that golden

Starting point is 00:06:15 arches down the highway or on your fries, you can't have an expectation of what it's supposed to taste like. So that's in like a design. A word mark, that's kind of obvious. Like McDonald's, we know what that is. And then I also think about color. People don't realize you can have a color mark. Like we know about like the Tiffany blue. Right. So Tiffany has that color on lock. And then sound mark, if I can go back to McDonald's, that um, da da da da da, da. They don't have to say McDonald's. You hear that. And they put such an impression in the market. So you can have a sound, a color, an image, a word, anything that you experience that lets you know exactly who created the goods and services. So that's trademark is very expansive. When you think about copyright, you're thinking about songs, books, movies, choreography, that type of thing. So it's not. a symbol that lets you know where the goods and services come from. It's the actual goods, the actual thing that's created. And that's the same with patent. So to me, patent and copyright

Starting point is 00:07:30 are similar because they're the actual thing, whether it's a gadget and invention, a process, something that's created. It's going to fall in the area either copyright or patent. And then we think about trademark. That's your brand. That's your image that you're putting out there, not necessarily all the things that are created. That would be copyright or patent. And then there's trade dress, right? Like how you package your goods. What is the feel of your website? And then there's trade secrets. So that's like the conversation you're going to have with maybe your assistant if you're a small business or your internal team would be a little bit bigger of how you do something that's not necessarily a patent, a copyright, or a trademark,

Starting point is 00:08:19 but you will have a trade secrets protocol to keep those things hush. You know what I'm saying? So when I think about there's this particular bread that I love, I can read the ingredients all day. I can read the recipe all day, but there's a secret. Like, I don't know what they do. Do they let it sit there for five or ten minutes before they move it to the oven? There's a little. secret there that nobody knows that makes this bread taste so good. So those are the top forms of intellectual property that you want to think about protection for. So what would you say are some common misconceptions about intellectual property? Well, I get a lot of people saying, I want to trademark this song. So we just talked about how a song would fall under

Starting point is 00:09:13 copyright and a trademark is maybe who. Like, you could think about all the songs that Beyonce has written, but Queen B, right, would be the trademark. So sometimes people confuse those two, a lot of times. And so I know within our residency program, especially with the newer attorneys, a client will come in and they're like, okay, I want to trademark this thing. And then they might start working on a trademark petition and then realize that we're where you can't necessarily listen to what the client's asking for.

Starting point is 00:09:47 You need to evaluate the entire brand. So that is a huge misconception. So I don't even like to get into it with clients about the different forms. Let's just study your brand. Let me know how long have you been in business? Where do you want to go? How do people recognize you? And from those conversations,

Starting point is 00:10:04 I can sort through what the IP is and what should be protected. That's really interesting because a lot of people, they don't even realize some of the protections that are there. And maybe you can tell me if this is true. I've been told that when you write something that it's automatically copyright, is that true? I think it is true under the Constitution. Until the Supreme Court solved this, I don't know what to tell you, because federal courts are not honoring it.

Starting point is 00:10:43 So just a few years ago, I would. be on this rant telling people you got to get this protection because if you only have, if you go to court and prove that you created it or you wrote this book or whatever first, the only thing the court could do would be an injunction to stop it from further. So you wanted the registration so that you could get back royalties from the person, all the profits they made using your IP. Now, if you don't have that registration, courts are bounce in those cases. left. It doesn't matter. You don't even get an opportunity to prove that you created. So I'm glad you mentioned that that is a huge one. With the trademark, I want to trademark my song, those type of

Starting point is 00:11:26 confusing the jargon, that's one. But also what you're talking about, I think, is sort of along the lines of the whoreman's copyright. So the constitution, under the Constitution and even the Copyright Act, if you've created it, it's yours. And the copyright, Royalty Board does not like to get into all of that because they want to honor our creators. That's what the IP clause in the Constitution says. We want to encourage people to create. We want to honor the fact that I add this piece, that God gave them something special to gift to the world.

Starting point is 00:12:04 We want to encourage that. But as of now, federal courts have consistently been saying, well, if you didn't take that step for registration, you're kind of telling the world. that you don't think there's value to it. So we're not going to enforce something that you didn't value enough to seek registration for. Oh, so that is something that people need to really, it sounds to me like it's a lot more complicated than we think it is to protect your intellectual property. So if people, they don't really know how to protect their ideas or their intellectual property, because an idea technically, I don't think you can protect an idea, but you can protect what you created. Is that accurate?

Starting point is 00:12:59 Wait, I'm going to understand the question? So you can't really protect an idea, but you can protect something that you created. is that the courts use that phrase that you can't protect a concept or an idea but what we do at artworks is we take that concept and that idea and we trunk it down and document it the documentation of it so no longer it's an idea it's an actual physical thing now so no you can't protect an idea technically but come to artworks and we'll help you take care of that so that you can get protection of an idea. So can you elaborate on the maybe the steps or the process that you might go through with someone to protect their intellectual property? Okay. So like I was saying earlier,

Starting point is 00:13:55 I really study the brand on my own, but also with the client. Talk me through, why did you decide to do this form of business or create this sort of thing? And once I'm understanding the brand, now I can say, okay, that goes into copyright category, that goes into trademark category. There might be some patented trade secret stuff here, but I can do, you know, parse that out and start having that conversation. So once I know what the IP is and then I know what the client's short and long term goals are, then I can prioritize because most businesses have more than one form of IP. So now we have to prioritize that, which one is most important to you? Or which one do I think is going to have the biggest impact later on? Okay, so now we're past that. Right. So then with

Starting point is 00:14:44 copyright, I'm going to start asking questions. Like, when did you write this book, create this song, shoot this film? Who else was involved in that? Because the Copyright Royalty Board, they look at all the creatists involved. So if you have a film, there is usually a score who's involved in that. Did you do all of that, you know, all of those pieces except the acting? But who wrote it? So I want to know who were the creatives that came together for this work. If it's something, let's use a book. So you wrote the book. Are there any images in there? Right? Because then now we're talking about a visual art copyright. If there's any pictures, drawings, graphics or whatever. And then there's the literary piece, the words. So now we're like, okay, who's involved in who

Starting point is 00:15:31 created what. And once I understand that, then I want to know when did this happen. So why is that important? Because if you have created this thing, whatever it is, book, song, whatever it is. And you've published it, like put it on the internet or the world knows about it. Five years or you might have a longer adjudication process. I do not say that the copyright office will not grant you the copyright for it, but they want to know when did you publish it. How long have you had it out there without protection? And now you're coming to us to fix your problem. Right.

Starting point is 00:16:09 So that's what I would want to know. Who created it? When was it created? When was it published to the world? And that's pretty much all that the Copyright Office wants to know. I mean, they want to know, yeah, they want to know things like, is this an emergency? Do we need to expedite it? if we have a problem, who do we need to communicate with those things? But mainly, who created it?

Starting point is 00:16:35 What is it? When was it created? And when did you put it out to the public? So those are the steps I go through and analyzing a copyright before we put it in submission to the Copyright Office. And with the trademark, the difference, remember, trademark is like, who create the goods or services? So the trademark office, they want to know, are you going to do a word? Are you going to do a design? Are you going to combine it? Is it going to be a sound? Is it going to be a color?

Starting point is 00:17:09 They want to know, they don't really care who created it. They don't ask you that. They're more concerned with what the thing is and have you gone to market with it as yet. So if you say, yes, I've been selling this thing or whatever for 10 years, three years, whatever it is, they want to know that. The difference between copyright and trademark is the longer you've actually been using it, the more valuable it is. So if you say I've been using this golden arches to sell fries for the past 50 years, the copyright off, the trademark office, I'm sorry, is more likely to help you. Like, oh my gosh, you've been using that for 50 years. We've got to make sure we protect that because we want to, it's about commerce. Trademark is about

Starting point is 00:18:01 commerce. How to make money, the country's commerce. Copyright and patent, it's not about commerce. It's about protecting the individual and their God-inspired creativity. So with trademark, that's what we'll look at. What is the mark? How long have you used it? And what are you using it for. So if you have the golden arches and you've only been selling fries, and you only have documentary evidence or proof that you're selling fries, you can't then apply that mark to, say, burgers. You can't do it because you don't have any proof that you've sold burgers. Now, you can file an intent to sell burgers, but then they're going to say, okay, we'll put it in this system, but you still got to sell a burger. And until you sell a burger, we can't give it to you.

Starting point is 00:18:55 And I think that is a misconception that people are out here saying, oh, this person got a trademark for their child's name. You can't. They can file an application, but the trademark office is going to sit and wait until you sell something. You can't just grab names and put it on lock and not use it. So it's intent to use or currently already in use. And either way, until you sell something, remember trademark is about money. Until you sell something, the trademark office is not likely. It's not that it's not likely. Trademark office will not grant that because then I could just do a trademark for your name.

Starting point is 00:19:38 And I'm doing nothing on the radio or nothing with PR, nothing within your goods of services. Right. And that wouldn't be fair. That wouldn't be right. Right. Yeah. I think that the way you explain me that it makes it easy to understand the differences between copyright, trademark, patent, et cetera, and why, how it works, like money versus protection.

Starting point is 00:20:05 That, I think that that's very clear. So tell me more about the artworks and who does it support and how does it support and how does it work. Okay. So ArtWorks is a program that was created actually before there was a, before the USPTO uncovered this whole several fraudulent schemes where the public was being defrauded because there weren't enough attorneys trained to do this work. It's very nuanced. It's very nuanced. And you want to make sure you're with somebody that knows what they're doing. With our program, we get a lot of clients that are alumni, is what I call them, alumni from online filing systems. So maybe they came because, oh, I want to create an LLC because we do that to everything business legal we cover.

Starting point is 00:21:01 Create an LLC. And then I'll say, what about your trademark? Oh, I have that already because they went through some online system that has no accountability the way an attorney would to follow up. And so there was one company that spurred the fraudulent research on all of these online filers, and they had filed almost 4,000 applications. And of the 4,000 applications, only about 50 of them were approved. But all 4,000 people assumed that everything was fine. So our works answers that.

Starting point is 00:21:37 There is a shortage of IP attorneys in this country and in this world. We provide a training program where, It's a postgraduate program. You got to be done with law school. And so in that training program, we make sure you understand all forms of intellectual property, all forms. Even if you say, you know what, I think I'm going to stick with music law and understand copyright. And that's what I want to do. You're not going to finish our program without also understanding patents.

Starting point is 00:22:06 So that's the training program. And you do that. It's a nine-month training program. After that, there's a four-month clinical. and then after you do that, you can either stay on and take on clients for your own practice. That's what we prefer or move on with your certification. The other half of that is that there's a nonprofit legal service provider artworks. So we provide all of these legal services for creative people and businesses at a below market rate.

Starting point is 00:22:39 because for me, I don't, I couldn't live with people being turned away because they couldn't afford a large firm to handle all these things that need to be taken care of and then get exploited in the long run. And so that's the personal side. I gave you the academic side or the personal side for me was I remember my grandmother submitting a poem. I won't say what publication, but I remember submitting a poem, and they were supposed to give a gift, like a prize, like first, second, whatever third price. And my grandmother needed that money. She submitted that poem. And later, I just remember her, like, crying. And she was saying they took my work.

Starting point is 00:23:29 I couldn't even read them, but I understood what was happening. And after all the academia, I finished law school. story came back to me and I was just bawling. Like my life's journey led me to do this work because I remember as a child how much that hurt me. And I said, I would want to do something to protect people. So that's what artworks does. It provides a safe space where creatives of all types, whether you're a singer-songwriter, you're an architect, whatever service you're in, whatever goods you produce. I don't want people walking around out in the world without the protection that they need. Because if you're doing it, remember what I said, the courts are like, if you're not

Starting point is 00:24:09 taking a chance to protect your work, then it's kind of like leaving your keys on the hood of your Lamborghini while you go into the store. If somebody drives off with it, it's wrong, but who, like you didn't care. So most people don't get that because they just want to get their work out into the world. They're not thinking about the protection. So I understand that. And that's why artworks exist to train lawyers to address this definite problem we have in the world where people don't have the protection that they need? So there are two sides of artworks. One is the postgraduate law training specifically an intellectual property so that you are producing more highly qualified attorneys and then the other half is that you actually are providing services to creatives

Starting point is 00:25:08 who need help with this at below market rates with highly trained attorneys. So they're going to get support in the way that they really truly deserve. Is that accurate? Absolutely. That's what we do. We bring the creatives together with the attorneys and then me or another. other senior attorneys in the middle supervising the process. The attorneys get an opportunity to perfect their expertise, and then the clients get an opportunity to have all the legal

Starting point is 00:25:38 services, their business or their craft needs without having to pay a high legal retainer. I love it because it's as a creative, again, creative people, it isn't that they're not smart. It's just that they really focus on creating and then they need that expertise to help them protect that property. So if somebody wants to reach out, what is the best way, either if they're someone who wants an attorney who wants to focus on intellectual property or someone who needs those services, where can they get information? Okay. I do want to underscore what you said. It's not that you're not, we smart. We work with scientists, you know, physicists. We work with not just singer-songwriters. We work with creative people. I don't know anything about neurosurgery and I don't want to, right? So it's about staying in your lane and in your craft. It's not about smarts. Right. When I go to the doctor, I want to get the help I need. And I'm not going to feel less. smart because I don't know neuroscience. So I'm so glad you said that. So if anyone needs any kind of legal assistance with business development, whether they need to form their entity, they need their intellectual property protected, or just want their brand, a brand audit. We do that to let you

Starting point is 00:27:09 know where you are. You can go toartworksnetwork.com. So that's what we have for our creatives, our clients, artworksnetwork.com. If you are an attorney, and we can go to artworksnetwork.com, if you are an attorney, And when I get this specialized training, get certified in that different website. It's artworksincubator.com. So think about the fact that we incubate lawyers, and that'll help you. And with the clients is about networking. So it's artworksnetwork.com for people that want to grow their business, get the IP protection that they need.

Starting point is 00:27:44 And if you're an attorney and you want to come into our residency program, it's artworks incubator. Okay. I will make sure that those two links are in the show notes so people can just click directly into them. Before I let you go, is there anything you'd like to add? Well, you, I want to thank you for an opportunity to talk with you again. You spoke with me right when Art Wars was going international. That was not the intent. It was just that we were in COVID and either we would have to shut down or find a way. And so we moved online and it became an international thing immediately because online attorneys from all over the world, creators from all over the world reached out. So I want to, if I have to add anything, I want to thank you because people often reference

Starting point is 00:28:40 that conversation we had, the way you interviewed and pulled things out of me that I didn't even really think to say. And so that's what I would offer. Thank you for the opportunity to chat with you once again. Wow, that gave me goosebumps. Well, I'm really glad that that happened. And it is phenomenal because a lot of times you don't think about patents, trademarks, and copyright as being international, but it certainly is. And there is so much involved in the fact that we are in this global society where, you know, we're crossing borders and, and, and, and, you know, especially with the internet. I've talked to several people in the last couple days, Australia, South Africa, London.

Starting point is 00:29:30 I'm always talking to people who are not in the United States about things that they're doing. So I'm really happy to hear that and the fact that it did go international. So everyone, go check out Artworks Network.com. is that accurate? Or artworks incubator.com if you're an attorney, I find that I actually, when I did my master's degree, I was in mass communications, but I actually did my thesis on copyright law

Starting point is 00:30:09 and how universities treated it when someone was creating content, when they're working out of, university and how the universities were compensating the people for that. And I literally looked at all these different universities to see what their policies were. Some, of course, took full ownership of someone's work and other ones shared that ownership with the actual creator. So that's been about, what, 20 years now since I did that. So, so it could be totally different now.

Starting point is 00:30:52 So thank you so much, Zen. Very interesting topic. And we'll have to catch up again another time on more of what you're doing out in the world. Absolutely. Thank you, Tann. Thank you. Everyone, go make it a beautiful day. Thanks for listening to Business Innovators Radio.

Starting point is 00:31:15 To hear all episodes featuring leading industry influencers and trendsetters, visit us online at business innovators radio.com today.

Business Innovators Radio - Artworks Zen Wasame: Demystifying the Complexities of Copyright, Trademarks, and Patents

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