Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin - Protect Your Brainchild

Episode Date: November 10, 2021

Did Nicole’s story about, achem, “Hary Mall” yesterday convince you that you need to protect your intellectual property? Good. Listen to today’s episode to figure out how. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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money is working as hard as you do. So why overcomplicate your money? Keep it simple with Bank of America, your one-stop shop for everything you need today and the goals you're working toward tomorrow. To get started, visit bofa.com slash newprosmedia. That's b-o-f-a dot com slash n-e-w pros p-r-o-s media. bfa.com slash newprosmedia. Hey guys, are you ready for some money rehab? Wall Street has been completely upended by an unlikely player, GameStop. And should I have a 401k? You don't do it? No, I never do. You think the whole world revolves around you and your money.

Well, it doesn't. Charge for wasting our time. I will take a check. Like an old school check. You recognize her from anchoring on CNN, CNBC, and Bloomberg. The only financial expert you don't need a dictionary to understand. Nicole Lappin. Yesterday, we talked about brainstorming your business's name.

And I told you the story about the legal rigmarole that I had to go through to get my brand trademarked. These sorts of legal battles are something I would never wish on anyone. So I highly recommend that any entrepreneur take the initiative to protect what's theirs, ASAP. But trademarking your brand isn't the only thing you need to protect if you're a business owner. You also have to be on top of your copyright game if you have an actual product like written works, your copyright game if you have an actual product like written works, poems, articles, or books, music, movies, or visual designs like wallpaper or jewelry. An application to copyright a single work will cost about $35, and you can start the process on copyright.gov. If you don't have these types of products but invented something, okay smarty pants, then you need to get a patent.

These applications start on the U.S. Patent Office's website, uspto.gov. Be prepared to spend some time on this application because it gets super detailed, asking you to present drawings and schematics of your invention. These patents can also get pricey. Depending on the invention, prices can range from $100 to $3,000 to secure your patent, not including the price of lawyers if you can't figure it out yourself. Before starting the patent process, be sure you really did come up with the work you're protecting. If it's not original or there's something similar that has been patented, then you'll need to prove that yours is different and better. Let's take a second and step back and unpack the jargon. These legalese terms get used interchangeably when people get confused, but there are important

differences, so I want to make sure you get them straight. Trademark is for a brand. It's that little tm at the top right if you're claiming the rights to a product or idea, or that little R in a circle if you've actually gone ahead and formally registered the trademark. Copyright is for a work or idea. It's that little C in a circle. Patent is for an invention. This one gets a badass patent stamp. So while these terms are all different, they are similar in what they are designed to do, which is to protect your intellectual property. If you need to rewind this episode and listen to these definitions a second or third time, then do it. You need to be super clear on this terminology so that you know exactly what you need to apply for. All of these processes fall under different government offices. And trust

me, you do not want to spend a bunch of money only to realize that you're wandering around the wrong office or need to start over. There are some major cautionary tales that advise business owners not to sleep on getting patents. For example, you may have learned in school about one of the most important inventions in history, the telephone, invented by Alexander Graham Bell in 1876. Or so your history textbooks will tell you. That's actually not how it really went down. Before Bell, there was another inventor, Antony Meucci, who created an early iteration of the telephone but wasn't able to scrounge up the entire chunk of change needed to get a patent at the time. And then again, at the very same time that Bell was rushing to get his patent together, there was another inventor, Alicia Gray, who apparently submitted a patent

for the telephone right around the same time as Bell. But Bell bribed the patent officer and ended up getting the patent and the money and all the credit in all the history books. Another cautionary tale revolves around the invention of the laser. Scientist Gordon Gould created the very first laser, which is obviously a hugely important invention to technology like printers, semiconductors, and many scientific processes, including DNA sequencing techniques, and of course, every cat's favorite toy, the laser pointer. But naturally, like a true scientist, Gould wanted to make sure his invention was absolutely flawless before filing a patent.

But while Gould was tinkering with his invention, two of his co-workers stole his laser technology and they patented it. Gould was eventually able to get his name on the invention and get a few mil back in royalties. But the legal battle to get what was rightfully his took three decades to resolve and probably a huge chunk of change. Here's one more. Ian Schrager, the businessman behind New York City's iconic club Studio 54, didn't keep up with his intellectual property work, and the trademark expired on his brand. So MGM Resorts was able to scoop the name up and open a Studio 54 in Las Vegas without giving Ian a single penny. Can you imagine? You spend countless nights burning the candle at both ends, building

your brand, and then it's taken from you completely legally and someone else makes money off your hard work? Hell no. I don't want to see that ever happen to you. And you can prevent it. So do it. I mean, they do say that imitation is the most sincere form of flattery. I get it. But there's also a huge difference between imitation and flat out theft. Surprisingly, Steve Jobs, one of the most decorated inventors of all time, said Picasso had a saying, good artists copy, great artists steal. And we have always been shameless about stealing great ideas. Anyway, I'd like to amend Picasso's saying to good artists copy, great artists steal, and eternal artists trademark their work so they're not victims of the aforementioned good and great artists.

For today's tip, you can take straight to the bank. Do your due diligence to make sure that what you think is your original work has really never been done before. If you're too quick to claim the idea as yours, but it's already out there, you're going to end up in an expensive situation. Either you're going to have wasted money on the application that will get rejected, or you're going to need to sink money into a legal team that will fight your competitor. Both scenarios mean spending money that you could have saved if you had just done a little more internet stalking. Money Rehab is a production of iHeartRadio. I'm your host, Nicole Lappin. Our producers are

Morgan Lavoie and Mike Coscarelli. Executive producers are Nikki Etor and Will Pearson. Our mascots are Penny and Mimsy. Huge thanks to OG Money Rehab team Michelle Lanz for her development work, Catherine Law for her production and writing magic, and Brandon Dickert for his editing, engineering, and sound design. And as always, thanks to you for finally investing in yourself so that you can get it together and get it all.