Digital Signature Licitness for Assignment of Intellectual Property in Canada

How to eSign a document: digital signature licitness for Assignment of intellectual property in Canada

intellectual property of a corporation trademarks patents copyrights other types of intellectual property what does it mean how as a business owner should we approach the task of understanding and protecting our intellectual property hi and welcome back again me eugene from cbs canadian business and enterprise services and today i would like to cover this topic and provide a little bit of clarity and maybe explanation on how we as business owners should approach the understanding of intellectual property and of course protecting different types of intellectual property and today we'll talk about the basics what it is how to identify it and what is the value of it and then we'll talk about trademarks i'll leave copyright and patents for some other opportunity to introduce and explain so as our business grows it generates different types of assets which usually we approach them from the perspective of tangible or intangible assets and tangible assets are easy to understand those physical assets that we use to develop our business to to produce our products or provide our services usually it will include building where operations are located equipment that we use to produce our products or provide our services inventory in many cases we might have millions of dollars of inventory on our warehouses that we use for future distribution among our clients vehicles sometimes used by employees to deliver products or inventory sometimes used by employees to travel from home to work all these assets are physical we can touch them we can see them we can assess them appraise them and get their price in a relatively easy way on the other side our business will also generate intangible assets non-physical assets many of which are well known to us is just we have to understand and approach them properly so our business name in many cases might become a very valuable asset the name of our business and please do not confuse it with a trademark that provides the protection for the name of our service or product and i will talk about it in detail shortly today and patent our innovation that we've created and we protect it and defend it and in many cases the companies that their patents portfolio would worth millions and millions of dollars and if you think about it universities they're one of the biggest patent portfolios holders in the world and that is one of the main sources of income reputation in many cases reputation might become a valuable assets that we would like to protect and prevent other people from using abusing or damaging so why do we want to protect our intellectual property just to summarize uh in many cases value of intellectual property might outpace the value of the company and of its other assets think about companies like kodak like blackberry like nokia those that many people think do not exist anymore or questionable what do they do but many of these companies have sold their names trademarks patents for millions and millions of dollars creating additional income to their shareholders owners or covering their liabilities working remotely we want to protect our intellectual property that becomes more substantial in its value especially when many businesses transition into remote working and technically staying with very limited amount of physical assets and on the other side growing substantially their intangible assets e-commerce think about amazon store that might exist on amazon ebay some other platforms all they would have is their name their trademark the the name of their products or services many of them wouldn't even have a warehouse because amazon would provide them with the fulfillment services so these companies mainly exist in the non-physical realm hence increasing the value of non-physical intangible assets there are some additional considerations that we should keep in mind and that is loss of intellectual property or being unable to protect it anymore might create substantial problems losses and sometimes even damage the existence of our businesses if we do not protect our property on time in real time on the proper matters we can lose the ability to protect it in the future the ability to continue growing its value and then we just lose what we had grown and up until now as the business operations become more and more internationalized we do not have borders anymore i can sell my products that eventually will then end up in in any country in the world without me knowing or not knowing it and definitely with the ease of movement between countries many businesses should consider the intellectual property from the perspective of protecting it in the future when we want to move into other market and expand our operations to new countries we want to make sure that our trademark our copyright our patents are protected there as well that's why it is so important to understand the whole scope of intellectual property and its protection so now let's talk about the first and probably the most popular type of intellectual property and that is trademark so first of all let's see what could be trademarked we can trademark a name any name of your product or service we can trademark a shape which is a logo type usually and there's a new type of trademark we can also treat like a sound so different types of sounds music and nature sounds or something that you've created specifically and this attached to your products so think about it as when you hear a sound would it be um associated in your perception with certain product the moment it does that should be trademarked in in order to protect other people from using the same sound because i can insert it in my advertising or commercials to draw attention of your customers to my products what we have to keep in mind is the difference between the company name and the product name though while company name has its own protections the trademark doesn't actually protect the company name trademark is intended to protect the service or product that we sell to our customers and has its name attached to each of them think about microsoft technically and theoretically if it wouldn't use its microsoft name next to each of its product like excel word explorer and it will leave it without microsoft attached to it it might come to a position where the microsoft itself wouldn't be trademarkable and only the actual word attached to the product or service would be able to to get trademarked so it's a bit of confusing but if you want your company to be trademarked use it on every product you sell attach it to the logo or to the packaging of your product if you don't want the company to be trademarked or if you don't need it if your products are already sold on the different name use that name to trademark and protect so what a basic conditions required to protect the trademark to even identify it first of all it must be unique of course we can protect trademark that doesn't confuse with already existing trademarks on names on the market it must be news there is no value for the public in protection of theoretical trademarks you have to use it on an ongoing basis in order to be able to protect it especially approaching the renewal of trademark and i'll talk about it shortly non-confusing so it's similar to unique but they're different aspects of these two considerations in many cases you would come to a position a situation where you protect trademark which already exists it just attached to a different type of products or services that there there's no confusion think about me producing toilet paper and wanting to call it apple no one will actually confuse it with apple ink iphones and whatever they produce so sometimes we will be able to protect a trademark that sounds the same or looks the same like others but is attached to different non-confusing products and of course there are certain exceptions usually your personal name geographical areas will not be able to trademark and it's understandable registration it is important to understand the limitation on registration first of all geographical limits every trademark is registered only in the country where the registration is done so it will be limited to the geographical area of that country and if you plan to develop your business into international realm working in different countries it is smart and prudent to start registering your trademark in all those countries where you intend to go and as soon as possible because the moment i have registered that trademark in relation to a similar product in the other country you won't be able to use it there expiry trademarks expire usually five or ten years depending on the jurisdiction they're renewable but you have to follow up if you forget to renew you might lose an opportunity to protect your trademark in the future and eventually when you approach the renewal as i told you you have to prove that you still use the trademark you will have to provide a picture of your packaging flyers advertising commercials website that you continue to use the trademarks the cost the initial registration usually includes from the actual trademark fee that you paid to the government agency it's about 500 to 1 000 depending on the jurisdiction again and you will pay between two to three sometimes four thousand dollars depending on the complexity of registration to your trademark agent of course the more regions you want to include there are different international treaties that will help you but it will increase the cost of the registration probably not multiply it mathematically but definitely will increase renewals costs a little bit less but usually the same like a new trademark because you have to supply almost the same scope of documents and proceed with the same process so once you've registered your trademark what do you want to do now first of all protect your trademark from the breach every time you identify someone using your trademark you must act if you don't act for a certain period of time i can say that you agreed to me using the trademark and continue using your trademark the moment you stopped using it you technically forfeit the right to protect the trademark you cannot hold it without using it in connection to the product or service that is being offered be so that's all about trademarks and intellectual property generally today thank you for being with me today me eugene from cbs canadian business and enterprise services as usual subscribe leave your comments in comment section below and if you have particular questions about your business operations better send an email so you do not disclose all this information to everyone and i hope to see you soon with some new topics that will come up with or you will suggest us to record the video for thank you again and bye bye