Funny Intellectual Property Quotes
Importance of Intellectual Property Rights
It’s amazing how something I told you 3 days ago becomes the great idea you had this morning.
Maybe you’re a creator with a new invention, someone with a name or brand to protect or even a person who’s thought outside of the box and discovered a better way to do something. In today’s world of creators striving for great ideas and how to protect those ideas, you need to be proactive and step up. IP protection is important because it protects creativity and prevents competitors from imitating products and services. Startups need to think about IP rights and branding right from the beginning.
The American Marketing Association defines a brand as:
A name, term, symbol, design or combination of them intended to identify goods or services of one seller or group of sellers and to differentiate them from those competitors.
A business is at risk of losing their brand name or domain names because they have thought about securing it too late or because somebody else has registered that name and it really belongs to another business. This not only puts a business at risk of legal proceedings and damages claims but also involves the cost of “taking down” in relation to new signage and the costs of rebranding for printing and new promotional material.
But … aside from all the stress of getting your brand name right, step out for a moment with some IP humour. Here are some funny intellectual property quotes to entertain you on your journey to branding your great new business and protecting your ideas!
What Do People Have to Say About Protecting Your IP?
“If a man is keeping an idea to himself, and that idea is taken by stealth or trickery – I say it is stealing. But once a man has revealed his idea to others, it is no longer his alone. It belongs to the world.”
- Linda Sue Park, A Single Shard
This quote from Linda speaks very true – it is up to you to protect your product, idea or name by keeping it a secret until the time comes that you can protect it through securing intellectual property rights. People will always be ‘inspired’ by other people’s work.
Remember – protecting your brand legally is what you need to do to effectively protect your intellectual property rights. Trusting friends with your idea and not being strict about who you share your creativity with is very risky. It is sensible to keep your IP a secret for as long as you can through, for example, non-disclosure agreements and taking active steps to decide how to protect your idea.
Once you release your content into the world and share it with others – it is no longer your own but also is now shared with a network of people.
“Representations that do not make sense are the best trade marks.”
- Kalyan C. Kankanala, Fun IP, Fundamentals of Intellectual Property
This is an interesting, and when you think about it, pretty accurate depiction of the best way to register a trade mark. This because the more descriptive your trade mark is, the less likely it is to be accepted by the trade marks office. For example, if you wanted to open your own shop selling bananas, you would not be able to register the trade mark name ‘Bananas’ as your shop name because this means all other banana sellers would be unable to use the word ‘banana’ to sell their products.
It would be far smarter to brand your shop with a name that is less descriptive, for example, “Polly’s Peels”. This is a trade mark that is far more likely to be accepted!
Intellectual Property is the oil of the 21st century
Mark Getty, Chairman of Getty Images
How very true – data and intellectual property are huge, untapped reserves of wealth. They are so important to the world because essentially these are intangible assets vital to protecting your brand, name, ideas, designs or inventions. They are the things that grant you ownership and power over your brand and the ability to protect it against others who may wish to copy your creative efforts.
“An image is not simply a trademark, a design, a slogan or an easily remembered picture. It is studiously crafted personality profile of an individual, institiution, corporation, product or service.”
- Daniel J Boorstin
Conclusively, if you haven’t picked this up already, your trade mark will be your BABY! Invest the time and effort in building a quality brand and trade mark and it will give back to you and your business in the long run.
As this quote from Daniel J Bootstin headlines, registering your trade mark legally is not just that – but setting up the preemptive protection necessary when facing future potential oppositions of your brand.
“I was once told I am being Arrogant as an Author just because I legally protect my books with copyrighting them and trademarking my titles and names. That’s not being Arrogant. It’s about being Smart. I went to law school And I’m married to a lawyer. It’s ingrained in me to fight the sh*t out of protecting what is mine even if it is perceived as “arrogant”. I’d rather be arrogant than stupid.”
- Kailin Gow
Arrogance – or what anyone else has to say about you legally protecting your brand – is irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. When someone comes and tries to copy your work, will you be happier to have protected your brand or happier that you weren’t seen as arrogant in the eyes of others? Be smart and protect yourself and your ideas.
Take away points
Registering your trade mark early is imperative to protecting your brand in today’s world of idea-thieves.
- Don’t trust people with your ideas – the only way your brand can be secured is through legally protecting your IP
- The less descriptive your trade make is, the more likely it is to be accepted as a registered trade mark
- Registering your trade mark becomes an incredibly valuable intangible asset to your brand
- Invest the time and effort into building and protecting your IP portfolio.
Lara Alexandra, Legal Assistant and Trade Mark Administrator
We are a team of trade mark attorney and IP specialists based on Gold Coast and Sydney. If you have any questions about protecting your IP, please contact us on 1300 77 66 14
Disclaimer. The material in this post represents general information only and should not be taken to be legal advice.
