Inside Small Business | Small Business & Home Business Marketing

10 Steps to Protect Your Great Idea

By Alan Tratner, SCORE Counselor

Got a Great Idea? Follow these First Steps:

1. Put all your ideas, notes and drawings in an inventor’s journal, and have it signed, witnessed and dated. Be careful about disclosing your ideas to anyone—use a confidentiality or non-disclosure document when discussing your ideas.

2. File a Disclosure Document Program with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (www.uspto.gov). This costs only $10 for two years of pursuit of patenting, but it’s not a patent.

3. Conduct a Preliminary Patentability Search to discover what patents exist like your ideas—and get a patent attorney to render you a Patentabilty Opinion. There are many ways to conduct the search, including the Patent Depository Libraries on the uspto.gov Web site. File a PTO Provisional Patent Application for one year if all looks good.

4. Make a model, demo or illustration and conduct preliminary market research with end-users. Know the consumers of your product, and listen to feedback. Use feedback to fine tune your project.

5. Investigate intellectual property filings such as utility and design patents in the United Staes and overseas. Also investigate copyrights, trademarks, servicemarks and domain name registrations for Web sites. Explore U.S. and international protection options and limitations.

6. Think about the two main pathways to inventing success: entrepreneurship or licensing—how do you want to be rewarded for your great ideas? The pathway you choose will dictate a lot of your actions—and budget.

7. Do not fall prey to invention development/promotion scams, which are prevalent. Check with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) for a list of these unscrupulous firms. If their promises sound too good to be true, they probably are. Get real professional help and seek the support of legitimate inventor organizations.

8. Investigate competitive products to make your product superior or better priced. Employ brainstorming techniques to evolve and accelerate the marketability of your ideas.

9. Find an inventor mentor—some one who’s done this process before—to provide guidance.

10. Believe in your ideas and persevere—it takes some time and effort to do all this right. Be realistic about your goals and good luck.

Copyright © Alan Tratner. Alan is a SCORE counselor and the program manager of the Santa Barbara Small Business Development Center (SBSBDC). Source: Score.org/protect_great_idea.html

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Have You Trademarked your Logo?

Legalzoom

The MGM™ lion. The Nike™ Swoosh. The Target™ Bullseye. These logos are more than images. They give companies instant recognition with buyers and represent an organization’s individuality. Logos for well-known companies can be identified at a glance and have tremendous marketing power. That’s why it’s important to get a top-notch logo design. And simplicity is the name of the game in today’s competitive logo world. Ornate details get lost in today’s one-glance environment.

So, even if you’re starting small, you don’t know where your company will go – or grow. After all, Wal-Mart began in 1962 with a single five and dime store and is now the world’s largest corporation. In other words, you want to consider the future now. Think from the ground up and start by creating a unique and recognizable logo.

But you also want to keep yourself safe on both sides of the logo process. That means (a) protecting your logo and (b) making sure you’re not using someone else’s logo.

The best way to safeguard your logo? Trademark it. Trademarks protect words, names, symbols, sounds and colors and distinguish one company’s goods and products from another. Trademarking a logo not only protects it from being used by other similar companies, it also protects a company from unknowingly infringing upon an existing logo.

Why Trademark a Logo?

Registering your mark gives you legal protection and lets the public know you own the mark. In fact, the mark ® can only be used after the logo is actually registered with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

There are two types of marks you can register with the USPTO (1) trademarks, which identify goods or products and (2) service marks, which are used exclusively to identify services.

If you do not officially register your logo with the USTPO, you can still use it. That’s because using a logo creates a “common law” trademark. Common law trademarks use either the “TM” (trademark) or “SM” (service mark) symbol to inform businesses that you own your logo. However, common law trademarks offer limited protection. To protect yourself nationally, it is best to register for a federal trademark. And in case of a lawsuit, your trademark registration provides a documented start date for your use of the mark.

A Trademark Search for Your Logo

Before registering a trademark for your logo, it’s best to do a trademark search. This will determine if your logo is truly unique. You can perform a trademark search on the USTPO website at www.uspto.gov to determine if your logo is already in use by someone else. Attorneys and professional search companies, like LegalZoom, can also conduct more comprehensive searches.

Keep in mind that a search is not required. However, if the logo you want to trademark is found to be too similar to one already in existence, your application will be denied. Government filing fees are not refunded.

How to Trademark a Logo

Trademarks are classified by a business’ particular goods and services. You must complete the appropriate application. The USPTO then reviews trademark applications for federal registration.

If you are interested in trademarking your logo, company name and domain name, each one must be trademarked separately. Even if your business name is part of your logo, the two must be registered individually.

It takes between 10 and 16 months to secure trademark registration with the USPTO. However, your logo is protected as of the date of filing, not the date of issue, so you can begin using your trademark immediately. Visit LegalZoom.com to learn more about trademark registration. LogoWorks customers can get 10% off any trademark order, click here to learn more.

State vs. Federal Trademarks

State trademarks only protect a logo in a specific state. Federal trademarks offer national protection but are only available to companies conducting business in more than one state. However, businesses operating in only one state usually find that a state trademark offers enough protection. Web businesses or those operating across state lines may want the protection of a federal trademark.

I’ve Trademarked My Logo, Now What?

Anyone whose logo identifies a business or profession should seriously consider trademark protection. Once you establish your trademark, the legal mark lasts forever. Just make sure to keep up with registration renewals at the five and ten year marks.

For more information on Trademarking your logo, visit www.legalzoom.com.

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Are you Ashamed to Hand out Your Business Card?

By Jonathan Munk, Marketing Manager, Logoworks by HP

Have you ever come to the end of a business introduction, knowing you must produce a business card, and ashamedly hold out a flimsy, generic eyesore with your contact information? Or worse yet, you ask your just-introduced associate to jot down your phone number and email on a piece of scrap paper because you don’t have a business card? You may feebly attempt to excuse your lack of professional cards, but what impression does this leave?

As a business owner, you know the importance of making a good first impression, and you only have one chance to do it right. Even though your business card will play a small role in meeting a new potential customer, partner, supplier or employee, that role is an important one. Your business card is the only tangible item people walk away with after meeting you. The design, feel and layout of your card say a lot about the culture of your company, its organization and your level of professionalism. It also reveals to others how serious you are about your company. Did you invest in marketing materials or simply get free, generic business cards somewhere?

Let’s review a few keys to having a professional, influential business card.

1. Include your company logo
You might be surprised how many business cards come across my desk that don’t have a proper logo design on them. Many include the company name with no logo, while some simply exclude the company name altogether. When I receive a card like this, it’s an immediate red flag that the company may not be well-established, may lack marketing direction or that the business is some kind of slipshod production. Sure, we all have to start somewhere, but making a professional first impression with good business cards is not very expensive and is worth its weight in gold.

2. Say no to clipart or generic templates
How would it feel to hand out a business card only to have someone say, “Oh, does ‘so-and-so’ work for you? He has the same card as you.”, and you have to come up with some reason as to why you share the same style of business card as someone else. If you follow number one above you won’t run into this problem, but generally speaking, it’s a good idea to stay away from templates that don’t match the look and feel of your business.

Furthermore, un-customized clipart is an absolute no-no. It’s better to have a business card with a lot of white space than to use clipart, for a few reasons. First, most clipart won’t look very good with your logo. Second, it adds clutter, detracting from the primary role of your business card, which is simply to pass along your contact information. Third, clipart generally looks amateurish and unprofessional. You would never see an executive from a large company handing out cards with an illustrated stick figure. Why would you?

Professional, custom designed business cards are the most sure way to get a unique, great looking business card you won’t be ashamed to hand out (Shameless plug: Logoworks is having a special right now on business card design and printing. You can get started for just $99).

3. Don’t skimp on printing
No matter how great your business cards look, if you don’t get them printed the right way, on the right paper, and for the right price, you will probably be unhappy with the result. Find a printer that knows the business and have them provide some quotes with various printing processes, paper weights and materials. Printing business cards is generally very affordable. Just realize if you simply go to with the cheapest printing you can find, you may pay for it in the ink and paper quality down the road.

4. Be careful about going over the top
While impressive and fun to look at, over-the-top business cards may not as effective as traditional cards. Cards that stray too far from the mainstream could get thrown away quicker than a regular one. For example, if your card has an unorthodox shape or is printed on extremely thick paper, it might get tossed because people have no place to store it.

One man I met handed out a walnut with his website printed on the shell as his business card. He owned a printing company and the idea behind his business card was to show that he could print on anything. The ‘card’ was a great way to illustrate his business idea and it was very memorable, but the next time I needed a printer, I didn’t have a way to contact him. All I could remember was he was “the nut guy.” After all, there’s only so long you can keep a walnut sitting on your desk. It was interesting and fun, but completely unpractical.

You should also keep in mind that increased revenue you receive from having outlandish business card designs is often not worth the cost associated with the cards.

Handing out business cards should be an exciting opportunity, not one to be ashamed about. Take the time to do it right, and you will be surprised how much more confident you’ll feel handing them out and how much better they’ll be received.

Look at some outlandish business cards: DailyPoetics.Typepad.com

Logoworks Business card Blowout offer: $99 Design, $99 printing for business cards.

Jonathan writes Influentia, a blog on influence, marketing and small business.

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