Video Transcript
Auto-generated transcript. Timestamps are approximate.
[0:00]
hey there I’m Garett Schuster welcome to Innovation Cafe and today I’m just going to hit a very highlevel 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 patn 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 SU 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 function that’s a design patent if it has function if it has utility it’s a Utility Patent if you want to save some money and file your patent application on the cheap you file a provisional patent application but that never turns into a Utility Patent you have to file an actual Utility Patent application with any here you do need to know that they’re really limited to the country they’re issued in so if I file for a patent in the United States and I have my Super Widget is now patented in the US no one can do it but me there is nothing stopping people from crossing the border and buying that widget in Canada now taking it back into the United States they might run into some trouble but as a practical matter it is unlikely that they’re going to get stopped with it patent protection ends at the border of the country that issued the patent simple yeah those are pretty much patents what is copyright copyright
is the right to control other people’s use of a tangible expression that comes from your mind so if you write down a note that’s copyright if you draw a picture that’s copyright if you write a book that’s copyright now do you need to do anything to have your copyri great issue cuz we know with inventions you 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 cuz 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 any all 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 simple and cheap but they don’t cover things that have a function they cover the expression of ideas now that’s been interpreted to cover software which does have a function and so there’s kind of a weird overlap between utility patents and copyright but again this is a complex Edge case that you don’t really need to worry about at this point it’s enough to know if you right 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 governmen 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 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 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 and that’s called the right of publicity and if you have a right of publicity claim you probably need to see a lawyer very difficult to boil that down to something
[5:18]
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 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 especially with a global presence like the internet you want to be careful how you do it and so I’m going to keep it short that’s it patents are for things that are useful and they stop other people from doing it they last 20 years from when you file for them copyrights are for an expression of something from your brain it’s for when you’re expressing a creative idea and those arise automatically we have trademarks just don’t confuse consumers
as to whether your goods which are called something the same as my goods came from you or me we don’t get to confuse them you get a trademark and I can stop you from confusing people so that’s really the long and the short of Ip simple quick to the point sorry it wasn’t more entertaining maybe next time I’ll do it wearing a costume thank you for watching Innovation Cafe and remember you have the creativity to change the world you have the creativity to change your own life use it you were born with it even if you lost it along the way it’s still there in the back of your head and we’ll catch you next time thanks from Innovation Cafe