“What is the most resilient parasite?Bacteria? A virus? An intestinal worm? An idea. Resilient. . . highly contagious. Once an idea has taken hold of the brain it’s almost impossible to eradicate. An idea that is fully formed — fully understood — that sticks; right in there somewhere”
- Leonardo DiCaprio in Inception (2010)
Ideas pop up in our brains every day and some have a wonder to them that can set a series of far-reaching success. And can change EVERYTHING. That's why you have to turn your ideas real. It is easy to assume that you need extreme preparation and connections to make it work, but sometimes you just have to take the first step and that could be wildly exhilarating!
As you are manifesting your ideas in to reality and monetising them, you got to protect yourself from cancerous thieves ready to kick you in the balls. Because an idea is not enough. This brings me to the concept of intellectual property. An intellectual property in its purest form is an idea. Through patents, trademarks, copyrights and trade secrets we protect our ideas.
Apple, Google and Microsoft thrive not just on their physical products but on the innovative ideas that propel their development. Bill Gates has built an empire by creating patents on software. In so doing became a billionaire and one of the richest men in the world. Patents are essentially grants that enable the inventor to maintain monopoly on the use and development of an invention for a limited time. Ideally within that time, you should have made money off it, whether through licensing or selling it out to companies or building your own company.
The Starbucks Frappuccino, KFC and Krispy Kreme recipes and formulations remain as trade secrets. Companies use trade secrets to protect their intellectual assets such as recipe, manufacturing process or technology. Far apart from patents, they are supposed to be undisclosed and not go into the public domain. In this way, competitors in the marketplace don't gain access to the formula. And if someone happens leak your trade secret, you can sue for misappropriation provided a non-disclosure agreement was signed beforehand.
It was in 2017 that Kylie Minogue put Kylie Jenner through the grinder by preventing her from trademarking their shared first name “Kylie” for her then-soon-to-launched beauty brand. The well-known fact is that trademarks give one the exclusive rights to use a word, logo or phrase in a particular country and industry (niche). Hence, if Kylie had been successful with trademarking the name, no one else could use the brand identity without facing the legal battle of infringement.
Copyrights, on the other hand, are meant to give protection over creative works such as books, movies, music and characters (among others). Unlike trademarks, copyrights don't have to be registered. For example, if you sample a hit song, you have to give a big portion of the track to the original copyright holders, songwriters and producers of the song. This merit of compensation is typically referred to as Royalty.
During the press run for Creed III, the ninth film in the Rocky franchise, I heard of the poignant rift between Sylvester Stallone and Irwin Winkler. Apparently, Stallone had ignorantly and naively sold the rights to the Film because he was a struggling actor at that time and had no idea how potentially massive it was going to be. So before signing any agreement or contract, thoroughly read through and red line it, before signing away your life, image...and rights.
The real currency is your ideas, so protect them!
Image Source: Freepik
#Food4thought #Idea #Currency
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