Video Transcript
Auto-generated transcript. Timestamps are approximate.
Hey there, I’m Garett Schuster. Welcome to Innovation Cafe, and today I’m just going to hit a very high-level description of some of the things I’ve been talking about. One of the things I learned early on in my life is it is better to explain things at a very basic level than it is to assume that people are going to understand all the nuances that it’s taken you a lot of time to learn. So this is super high-level stuff.
What’s a patent? A patent is a monopoly — meaning no one else can do it — that the government grants you to practice your invention. So you build a new, better widget, you file for a patent with the government. The government says, “Yeah, you know what? This is novel, it’s not obvious” — those are the criteria for getting a patent — and they give you a monopoly. So for 20 years from the day you file, no one else can do it but you, and if they do it, you can sue them.
There are a couple kinds of patents. If you come up with an ornamental design — meaning it’s just pretty, it looks nice, it doesn’t have functional value — that’s a design patent. If you come up with something truly functional — it’s a machine, it’s a process, it’s a composition of matter — that’s a utility patent. Design patents last 15 years, utility patents last 20. Most of the stuff I talk about on this channel relates to utility patents. That’s the ones most people care about.
Now here’s the thing: you can’t just patent an idea. A lot of people think, “Oh, I’ve got a great idea, let me patent it.” Nope. You actually need to have an invention, which means you need to describe in detail how to make and use the thing. So if you have an idea for a teleportation device but you can’t explain how to build one, you can’t get a patent on it. But if you can explain exactly how to build it, now we’re talking.
Now let’s talk about copyright. Copyright protects original works of authorship — things like books, music, movies, code, art. Unlike patents, you don’t have to file anything to get a copyright. The moment you write a book, that’s copyright. Now, do you need to do anything to have your copyright? Great issue, because we know with inventions you’ve got to go to the patent office and file, and sometimes hire a lawyer, and it’s not as much fun as it sounds — and it doesn’t sound very much fun.
No, you don’t need to do anything. In the United States, the copyright just arises when you create the thing. So if I just go to someone’s car and do a little drawing in the dirt on their window, believe it or not, I have a copyright in that drawing. Also probably not cool to do because it’s just not nice. But you can get a copyright pretty much for just something you’re writing down on a cocktail napkin, and it’s valid.
Now here’s where it gets complicated. If someone else starts to copy your stuff, then to sue in the United States, you’ll have to register your copyright. Did I say it was complicated? No, it’s super simple. You just go to the copyright website, you put in a little bit of information, and boom — there’s your copyright. So copyrights are really easy and inexpensive to protect.
There’s one kind of right that’s a little bit different. What if you write code? Is your code copyrightable? Actually, yes. If you write code, that can be copyrighted. In fact, it is when you create it. You draw a picture, you write a book, you take a picture — that’s copyright. Copyright covers pretty much any tangible expression.
A trademark is a government-issued right to keep your customers from being confused about whether some other product that you didn’t make might be made by you. That’s all it’s supposed to do — it’s supposed to prevent consumers from being confused. It wasn’t even created to help big companies, but it really does. Given the choice between the five most valuable patents in the world and the five most valuable trademarks, take the trademarks in a second, by the way. Those don’t ever need to expire if you do a good job with them.
It is somewhat more complicated to file a trademark than it is to just register a copyright, but it’s not wildly complicated. And if you’re really down in terms of cash, you can still file it in the United States anyhow for $250 for a single class of items.
There is one weird kind of intellectual property, which is the right to control how your image is used, especially how it’s used in business or commerce. That’s called the right of publicity. If you have a right of publicity claim, you probably need to see a lawyer. Very difficult to boil that down to something that is simple to explain, but I’ll try. If you want to put my face on your billboard, you need my permission. If you want to put my face on a box of cereal — by the way, you should probably seek professional help if you decide to do that — but you would need my permission too. If you’re exploiting someone’s likeness to make money, you need their permission to do it. Not true in every place in the world, but it’s true in enough places that essentially you should just assume you need someone’s permission.
So there you have it — a very high-level overview of intellectual property protection. Patents, copyrights, trademarks, and the right of publicity. Thanks for watching!