Saying the word “startup” conjures up images of Silicon Valley smarty-pants rocking flip-flops and essentially living at their desks, working their tails off to IPO or drum up rounds of funding. While this picture I’ve painted might be the reality for some, in truth, startups are any new business, determinedly trying to get off the ground and obtain customers. In those whirlwind times, there’s a lot to consider, and unfortunately, intellectual property (IP) concerns can fall to the wayside—or worse, not be a concern at all. After all, most startups aren’t even sure what IP entails. Here are four startup must-haves that relate to intellectual property:

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Char sent me an email one day with some incredible website links to share on social media with a follow up statement: “Now that I’ve done some solid IP Internet fodder researching, I thought I’d take a crack at a blog post…” And that was that. No questions asked, she just wrote a blog post titled “Four Startup Must-Haves That Relate to IP” – of which you must read, because it is a GREAT post! So I thought it would be appropriate to next introduce to you Char, Traklight’s Copy Czar…

 

What I learned about IP before I started at Traklight?

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This is a guest blog by Kunvay blogger Christine Varad, an attorney and artist who helps educate creatives, freelancers and their clients navigate copyright and intellectual property. She has a long standing interest in intellectual property law and promoting the rights and interests of writers and visual and performing artists.

Continue reading “3 Common Copyright Mistakes Creatives & Freelancers Make”

The last thing you want to do is ever infringe on trademarks that may apply to intellectual property you found in your business. Sometimes when a business buys another business, prior IP might be discovered later that’s stored away in a vault. What happens if your business decides to create something slightly similar to an item already trademarked? Fair use applies to trademarks as much as it does to copyrights. But you still have to be very careful or you could end up dealing with complicated legal issues.

Continue reading “Trademarks and Fair Use: What Can Your Business Use Without Being Sued for Infringement?”

Not what you think. As a female entrepreneur leading a company of thirteen just about equally divided between men and women, I merely pointing out what really gets the women Trakers excited.

Continue reading “Female Entrepreneur Pornography (FEP)”

During my junior year in college, I had a genius idea. One of a kind, novel, and most importantly, patentable! Even if I didn’t know exactly what a patent was…I knew this idea needed a patent.

Being a broke Arizona State University student at the time, hiring an IP attorney was out of the question. Going directly to an attorney was the only option I knew. I searched the web for Arizona IP firms and found one with a free initial consultation. 

Continue reading “Michael’s Patent Process…Pending”

Michael’s an Arizona native who brings passion and integrity to Traklight. One of his favorite quotes from Sandlot is, “Heroes are born, but legends never die.” Michael claims he’s neither, but he does evangelize Traklight.

 

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My cousin and her family were visiting Philadelphia last summer and she was telling me how her good friend, Mary Juetten, founded a start-up that was very cool, very interesting, and that we should connect, quite simply, because we would like each other. Fast-forward two months when Mary visited Philadelphia to speak on Crowdfunding at LES’s Annual Meeting when I had the good fortune to meet up with her for a pre-conference dinner.

Continue reading “Cocktails, Dinner, and Intellectual Property”

I often wonder why people would choose to stay and work at a startup when they have a choice; when I talk about “people” I talk about the keepers who you definitely know are good and could go and find something to do somewhere else and in virtually all cases, for more money.  So then why would people choose to stay and voluntarily step up to the wall, take their honored position side by side with each of their associates, and day in, day out, pound their head against the wall?

I had to give this some thought. I had to relate back to my direct experiences not only in my personal career but those at Traklight as well. I needed to understand. What follows are my personal observations on how the keepers in a startup are the necessary life blood of your company. Hopefully, this reflection is also helpful in defining the culture of your startup as well.

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Protecting intellectual property is an essential action far too many businesses still don’t realize is more than necessary. Even worse, those same businesses don’t realize the implications beyond hurting their potential for profit. In reminders from IT experts this last year, we see that the theft of intellectual property is starting to make a major impact financially on businesses. In turn, the U.S. economy and the process of innovation could be rattled to its core soon if IP theft is allowed to continue.

Continue reading “Help the Economy: Protect the Intellecutal Property in Your Business”