COPYRIGHTS, TRADEMARKS and PATENTS The inventor's usual paranoia over copyright protection seems totally ridiculous when they don't even want to look at your idea. And if they do and they're a reputable company it isn't in their best interest to want to steal it anyway. If they are interested, any royalty amount you'd probably negotiate wouldn't be that great of an amount to deny recognition of your copyright. Copyright is basically automatic in the sense of having drawn or painted a picture or taken a photo yourself. If you’ve composed some music, a poem or written something down on paper as a book it is your copyright. Copyrights have their limitation in the sense that if someone else produces something basically the same with enough slight differences they won’t necessarily be judged as stealing your idea. Trademarks are important for obtaining the right to trade your invention, product or goods under a particular logo or name distinctive from other traders. They also distinguish in specific categories of goods that aren’t related. A design mark or logo is easier to obtain than a word (The Toyota logo for example). Word trademarks may not necessarily be exclusive and trademarks don’t offer protection from someone copying your idea or design. They become very important if a rival were to use the same one as yourself when selling the same kind of product and exploiting the good reputation you may have grown by default. As explained to me the choice of a trademark or brand can be absolutely critical if your product or invention has the potential for success. Just imagine if you have built a huge reputation around a certain brand or trademark only to be told you can no longer use it. So not only does a careful choice protect you it protects others from your use of theirs. In choosing a trademark it is very wise to check and do the required searches in the likely areas your product or goods might be traded to avoid conflict with others. I applied for “What a Catch” for the table games on this site and was then advised that while it was not directly descriptive of the games it still had the potential for conflicts. Most trademarks aren’t descriptive of the goods being promoted or sold and it’s done specifically to avoid conflicts. As explained to me:- “What does an apple have to do with computers?” We only have to look at all the big brands to find that they don’t directly describe what they trade. This can be a good thing as you can choose anything like some made up or unusual word so unlikely to be used that the bother and cost of extensive searches can be avoided. From the moment you expose your brand via the web or any other means you are building its reputation and its value may eventually become priceless. Once again other inventors can be very naive and in their enthusiasm will overlook investigating and getting basic protection for their idea. The popular British television show Dragons Den has had many people enthusiastically pitch their ideas to a group of very successful business people and venture capitalist. Many if not most stumble on the monetary figures and projected profit etc. Some others assume that their idea has been given some written assurances for purchase but once scrutinised is found to be nothing of the kind while others think they have total protection by trademark. Patents depending on what you’ve invented are more important and while most of us can apply and obtain a local trademark ourselves patent self applicants are far less likely to succeed at getting a patent certified after examination. Your application will be accepted as will your money your request for examination will be accepted as will your money then you most likely will receive a letter of rejection that you have some time to respond to. This will require you to overcome what obstacles caused it to be rejected. At this time you’ll probably realise you should have got a patent attorney as patents are something that require specialist knowledge. I was a self applicant for the other invention shown on this website and applied to have it examined and certified. After six months had passed I had become aware some that it most likely would be rejected. Since then I decided not to wait any longer and had a patent attorney lodge a completely new application. It was definitely the smartest thing I could have done. As for the examination request after ten months of no progress I rang IP Australia believing that it was not unreasonable to cancel it. The delay was due to a large backlog I was told and that they would respond to my request to cancel and reimburse the application fee which they have since done.
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