Crush your competitors with Intellectual Property secrets
Date: December 22, 2015
Name: Crush your competitors with Intellectual Property secrets
Presenter: Andrei Mincov
Brand is one of the most valuable assets for entrepreneurs to create their business legacy. However, most entrepreneurs do not know how to protect their brands. Vancouver Business Network Meetup invites Andrei Mincov, the Founder of Trademark Factory, to discuss how to utilize intellectual property to protect entrepreneurs’ businesses. In this presentation, Andrei Mincov will share his business experience to help entrepreneurs understand how trademarks work in business. He will also provide trademark strategies to protect business brands. Moreover, entrepreneurs will discover the deeper meaning of using trademark to maximize their recognition in their business industries.
Andrei Mincov is the Founder of Trademark Factory. Mincov was an intellectual property lawyer for over 20 years. His lawyer experience eventually leads to business when he believes helping entrepreneurs to protect their assets is his passion. From Russia to Canada, Mincov’s vision of helping entrepreneurs never stops. Mincov is the bestselling author of book called “the Ultimate Insider’s Guide to Intellectual Property”. In addition, Mincov is also an international speaker who inspires and support young entrepreneurs.
Andrei Mincov shares his business journey started at Russia. Mincov had a strong interest of pursuing music industry as profession until Soviet Union collapsed. Aside from music, Mincov loved to argue, so he pursued lawyer instead. However, he hated it. When his father, a famous composer, discovered his music was stolen from someone, Mincov was asked for legal advice, but he realized he had no idea of Intellectual Property, no experience in court room and there is no internet to research the information. Although he won the case, he was determined to focus on intellectual property.
Even though Mincov worked in the biggest lawyer firms in Russia, he realized Russia is not the best place for him. He moved to Canada and it took him 3 years to re-certify his license because of different law regulations. He later influenced by the book called “Rich Dad Poor Dad” to start his own law firm. Furthermore, he realized his success in business is not in the ability as a lawyer, so he started his own business company called “Trademark Factory”. Trademark Factory is a business that revolutionizes the trademark property. Mincov gave up his license to serve better service and product for the future in worldwide.
Mincov mentions when he was been asked what he do, he would response “I do trademark, and nothing else”.
Discover the secrets of intellectual property
Mincov defines Intellectual property is an umbrella term and it can protect business in many different ways. Intellectual property can categorize into 6 major areas.
The first area is called Copyright. Mincov defines copyright as how to protect business content. Entrepreneurs must understand that copyright can only protect how their words in their branding are expressed. In addition, the sequence of words is the perfect example of using copyright to protect entrepreneurs’ branding. Copyright protection can last to 50 to 60 years after entrepreneurs are passed away.
The second area is called Trademark. Mincov defines trademark as which service identify from competitors. Trademark can protect almost everything. The four major categories for trademark are product line, services, logo, and tagline. Entrepreneurs can renew their trademark infinite time. Mincov believes the success of using trademark is based on two factors.
- The trademark must connect to successful business
- Trademark must act as a protection from competitors
The third area is called Patent. Mincov defines patent as what content is protected. Entrepreneurs can use patent to protect their underline products, ideas, methods, or even functions. Patent can only use for 20 years. Mincov mentions patent can cost a lot.
The forth area is called Industrial Design. Mincov defines industrial design as the expression of “wow”. Industrial design focuses on the protection of the look of the design. Mincov recommends entrepreneurs to use this protection if they could not get anything else.
The fifth area is called Trade Secrets. Mincov defines trade secrets as the expression of “hush”. Entrepreneurs can use trade secrets to protect anything that has commercial value to competitors. Based on the range of trade secrets, it can almost cover anything. However, trade secrets can be a good addition until other competitors figure out the secrets on their own.
The last area is called Contracts. Mincov defines contracts as the expression of “whatever”. Contract is what entrepreneurs agree they will do with the intellectual property. Mincov wants entrepreneurs to take extremely caution because most entrepreneurs might not realize what they sign can potentially damage their intellectual property without extra care.
Mincov creates a procedure that can help entrepreneurs understand more about their intellectual property. Importantly, the procedure can also support entrepreneurs to review their business strategies.
Intellectual Property Strategies Review
The structure is made up of 4 parts.
- Who
- What
- In
- Out
The “Who” part focuses on who owns the business. The “What” part focuses on what is in the business. The “In” part focuses on the content from external parties inputs into the business, and the “Out” part focuses on the content business created for external parties. A majority of entrepreneurs only think about the “Out” part; in fact, Mincov believes the other 3 parts are important because the other 3 parts make up the last part.
During the presentation, Mincov demonstrates the Intellectual Property Strategies Review on a couple of entrepreneurs. Mincov provides some sample questions to help entrepreneurs to understand how the procedure works.
Who
- Is the business a startup?
- Is the business an early stage?
- Is it sole proprietorship, partnership or corporate?
- Does the business have employees?
- Is the business under the umbrella?
- Does the business have any one in contracts?
- What do the contractors do?
What
- What does the business do?
- What is the future plan?
- Is it licensing or making?
- How are people going to find out about the business?
- How do other people market the business?
- Do people know or remember the business brand?
In
- How is it documented?
- Is there any current signed contracts?
- Who wrote the script?
- Who did the content?
“Brand is your successful business”
“If a brand is not ringing a bell in the market, the brand is not good”
“Worst fight comes from good friends”
“The more competitors in the market, the more stronger the brand”
Questions and Answers
Mincov emphasizes trademark is country specific. Entrepreneurs should trademark their brand in the country where their market is located. When a brand has a “TM” beside it, it means the brand is unregistered trademark. Unregistered trademark is a way to show the market that the brand is under the process of trademark.
When someone has the existing domain name of other people’s brand, Mincov suggests entrepreneurs to try register for the trademark. It is important to know that entrepreneurs cannot take away the domain if they do not have the trademark in place; however, if entrepreneurs have the trademark, they can get the domain from other owners. In another words, when entrepreneurs register the trademark, it will force the existing domain to be unsellable to other buyers.
Mincov believes trademark will not give entrepreneurs the monopoly of the market; moreover, it will only give the mind link of the service in the market.
http://trademarkfactory.com