Erin Austin: Hello everyone, welcome to this month's LinkedIn Live. I do these every last Wednesday of the month at noon eastern, where I answer your questions about copyrights and contracts. And so if you are listening to this, there are Slides that go along with this, although you can absolutely, get all the value from this episode by listening to it.

Erin Austin: But if you're curious, you can see the slides on my YouTube channel, or also on my LinkedIn profile. So this month, we are talking about why copyrights are more valuable than trademarks. Now, this is my opinion. Of course, I imagine a trademark lawyer would have a different opinion, but my point of view is specifically with respect to the B2B professional services provider who has corporate.

Erin Austin: Clients, and so are concerned a little bit different than, say, a Pepsi or a FedEx or even, an IBM, right? And so we are going to talk about. How they are different how they are same and how they will work together. So 1st and please feel free to put comments in the, chat box. if it doesn't throw me off too much, I'll answer them.

Erin Austin: But if not, I'll wait until the end. I've gone both ways. so copyrights versus is 1 is if they're battling against each other, but they aren't that was just. Because I like the image because they really do work together. As, you know, I'm a huge fan of service based businesses of experts, creating intellectual property assets, because they're very important value builder in your business.

Erin Austin: And so they aren't mutual exclusive. We will have copyrights and trademarks throughout both in our businesses, probably, but I will be. Making an argument, of course, that, the copyrights are the more valuable and the more essential intellectual property assets in your business. So, 1st, to talk about what does copyright protect versus what trainer.

Erin Austin: Protects so copyright protects the original expression of something intangible form. So is the way we, what we write in a book, what we paint on a painting, what we record in a song or on video, what we create in a graphic. So those things that we take an original idea, and we make. work out of it. those things that have to be human, of course, are eligible for copyright protection.

Erin Austin: you may know that copyright protection attaches at the moment that that original work is created. there is an extra step of registration if you want to enforce the copyright against a third party infringers, but you do have that copyright protection from the moment that it is created.

Erin Austin: Trademark and copyright very importantly does not protect ideas. Trademark protects our reputation, our brand. It tells, the world, the consumer specifically. What the origin of a good or service is, I used examples of IBM and FedEx. When we see those trademarks, we know exactly who's delivering our package or where our office machine came from.

Erin Austin: I don't know. What does IBM do now? and so it protects, names. Logos, even protect colors like u p s, brown, and even sounds like the N B C, chime. and so that tells the world, so that protects the origin of a good or service, but it does not protect content. And so I'm gonna talk about.

Erin Austin: An example today, where you are, we are an HR consultancy. The name of our business is diversity talent solutions. And yes, I did get that from chat. GBT. and we provide DEI training to corporate clients. And so when we have this business. What do trademarks versus copyrights protect for us? So copyright that protects all of our training materials, any videos that we've recorded, scripts for our trainers, workbooks, worksheets, um, you know, webinars

Erin Austin: that we put on. These are all works. That when they are original, and we've put them in tangible form, they are protected by copyright. All of our marketing materials, the podcast that we go on the speeches that we give our LinkedIn posts, our newsletter, our website, all of those materials are protected by copyright.

Erin Austin: Work product, let's say we are engaged to create employee workbook for 1 of our clients. And so it is copyright law that will determine the ownership and the rights. that client, will have in using that employee workbook. So it could be that, you have 1 that you're just licensing to them and that they can't use it for any other purpose, or it could be that you're creating an original 1, just for them because there's something unique about their office environment.

Erin Austin: And they had some specific, requests so, but it is copyright that will determine the ownership and the use or reuse, or the creation of derivatives of that. work product, and let's say you are the client. Let's say you have engaged a 3rd party to help create your course. you are the expert in issues, but you're not a course designer.

Erin Austin: You're not an educate. I think they're called. Education designers, perhaps. And so you've engaged one of them to help you, with the user experience, the flow and everything of your course. So you hire them. It is copyright law that will determine your ownership rights in the deliverables that course designer creates for you.

Erin Austin: So that's copyright. On the trademark side, what does trademark protect? It protects the name of your business. And so, we can see that there is a little bit of a lopsided there. So we're going to talk about the value of copyrights. In your business and the value of copyrights to your clients. So, first, in the context of the value, maximizing the value in your business.

Erin Austin: I talk about exclusivity and sustainability. I have, talked a great. Deal about it in the context of creating a business that you can sell someday. But the things that help you create a business that would be saleable are the same things that help you build a business that is scalable and therefore increase the value in your business.

Erin Austin: So the two main pillars we talk about when we're talking about service based business and maximizing the value of it are the exclusivity and the sustainability of the business. So, and within exclusivity, we'll, take each and turn exclusivity and sustainability with exclusivity. We have the 2 pillars of assets and positioning.

Erin Austin: Now, positioning is technically an asset as well, but I've set it up this way to think about, because assets are more kind of solid, even though they're intangible, they're more solid than positioning, which is a little bit of a, harder to kind of grasp, asset. So, on the asset side and also on the asset side, these are things that are can be pretty cleanly assigned to a 3rd party or is positioning may or may not be assignable to a 3rd party.

Erin Austin: So, your assets, your intellectual property, which we've talked about, we've talked about the things in our HR consultancy business in this example, that are protected by copyrights or by trademarks data. Would be a valuable asset if you have data or research that you have databases are protected by under copyright law and any insights that you draw for them.

Erin Austin: You take your data and you analyze it and you draw insights from it and you publish white papers or use it in presentations. Those insights are protected by copyright. And then the things we use within our business to make us more efficient to provide, maximize the value that we provide to our clients.

Erin Austin: We develop tools and processes. We may have, a library of resources. We may have templates or models. We may have methodology and frameworks that we use. We may have S. O. P. S. and even, those employee handbooks are important to make sure that we're all working together. and so those may or may not be,under copyright law.

Erin Austin: Copyright does not protect methodologies. It does protect the expression. So someone can't literally copy your S. O. P. S. but they can read them and. You know, use them as their own. Um, but still, these are assets that provide value in our business, depending on how developed they are, they would be protected under copyright law.

Erin Austin: Um, they are not protected under trademark law. And then our positioning, our expertise, you know, what we do, our niche, who we serve, the thought leadership, where we combine this to add value to the conversation, uh, about. Who we serve and how we do it and, of course, our brand and our reputation, all these combine to create our unique position in the marketplace.

Erin Austin: Excuse my dog is decided to join us. Um, and, uh, and so these are. Uh, protected by a combination of copyright and trademark, you know, the things all, all, all of our thought leadership, all the content we create our presentations or speaking gigs, all of that webinars thought our thought leadership is protected by copyright law.

Erin Austin: And, of course, our brand would be protected with a trademark. And so, and we can, of course, have both. I'm going to try to. Of course, I'm using the slide that you probably can't read, but here, you know, I've created a copyrightable, uh, work in the form of this presentation. And here I have, I don't know if you can see it against this light background, but I have my copyright line here, you know, the C in a circle 2023, Aaron Austin Law, PLC.

Erin Austin: Um, the law firm is my official business entity, but my brand is think beyond I. P. and I have this little, uh, I. P. guy in a box who is, um, part of my, uh, trademark with think beyond I. P. Now, for me, personally, I have not registered a trademark, um, for think beyond AP, um, and I'll, we'll tell you why in a minute.

Erin Austin: And so that is exclusivity pillar. Sustainability is the other pillar. So. The ability to, um, uh, continue regardless of what is happening with you as the owner. So, if you are the only person who's driving sales, driving revenue, doing all the things, your business is on the less sustainable end. Versus if you have some independence and there is some independence in your business from you for making sales, for driving revenue, then it becomes more sustainable.

Erin Austin: And it is a continuum. Um, for those of you who have questions about that, I do have a assessment about where you are on that, uh, sustainability, um, to continuum 'em. And, um, you can find that on my website. I'll have that at the end. And so the things that would, um, Promote sustainability are leverage and so leverage is where you have an input, but that the output from it is a magnified from the input.

Erin Austin: And so, say, in making an investment in creating a product, we put in that investment in the front end, but then we can sell it multiple times. And so its impact is magnified from the input. And so generally that involves either, you know, the creation of tools. It doesn't have to be something you sell. It can be the creation of tools to make you more efficient.

Erin Austin: Um, and, uh, you know, something that's product ties that you're doing over and over again and again, you know, you can continue to create that value for your client, uh, less expensively and, uh, and then, Your business model, do you have a 1 to 1 custom business model, which hard to create efficiencies or do you have some variety of your business model?

Erin Austin: So you have some things that are 1 to several, like, um, you know, like, um, a mastermind or group or group program, or 1 to many in the form of a course. Or a book, um, you don't need to have all those things. And that's not, um, uh, I don't want anyone to think that. Um, but there's more than 1 way than just having 1 on 1 custom services to create sustainability in your business, even just having a systematized, um, service that you can help peel off pieces of it.

Erin Austin: Like, you know, that. X needs to be done, or you have a starting point from a template, or, you know, that there is this piece that doesn't involve me. I can use a contractor for this, or I can even use technology for this to help make the delivery of that 1 on 1 service more efficient. And then protection, that is the form of our contracts.

Erin Austin: You know, are we using contracts effectively so that when we have deliverables from our contractors, we have work product we're delivering to our clients that we make sure that we're still owning and controlling the rights that flow from those deliverables and again, that is Copyright and that's copyright protection that you get with those contracts.

Erin Austin: Um, typically for the expertise based business, there's always going to be exceptions, but these are just the typical cases. So that is the exclusivity, sustainability to create the most value in our businesses for ourselves. What about the value to our clients? So. You know, I hate to call it this, but it is a little bit, you know, the trademarks are a little bit of a vanity piece.

Erin Austin: Now it's not that it's unimportant that your clients not be able to tell you apart from your competitors. It is important that your clients can tell you apart from your, um, from your competitors, but is the value to your clients. In your trademark, or is the value to your clients in the transformation?

Erin Austin: You provide the outcome that they get from you. That doesn't come from your trademark that comes from. The training you provide the, um, research that you have the insights that you have the process that you have all those things that provide the outcome that your clients are paying you for that will provide the outcome that your clients will rave about that will provide the outcome that will cause your clients to, um, refer you on to other people.

Erin Austin: And so it is not. The trademark and so making sure we're focusing on the outcome of providing to our clients and not, you know, how cute our trademark may or may not be. Um, and, uh, and so, you know, would your client. You know, be just as happy with you with a different name. And I'm going to argue that it would be now, even though I will, you know, have obviously come to the conclusion that copyrights, um, are greater than I don't know if that's the right thing, but copyrights are have more value in your B2B, um, expertise based business.

Erin Austin: When you have corporate clients. Um, it doesn't mean that trademarks. Thanks. Are unimportant. They are important, but they don't they don't really, um, challenge the value of the copyrights in your business. You know, like, you know, we want to be able to be distinguishable from our from our competitors, but that shouldn't be because we have such a cool trademark that should be because of the work we are doing.

Erin Austin: In our industry, getting out there, speaking, writing, showing our expertise, having satisfied clients, getting those testimonials showing up on LinkedIn. That's the way we distinguish ourselves. You know, having the positioning. I mean, I could go back to the positioning slide. Those are the ways that we create.

Erin Austin: Uh, our unique positioning and the trademark is the cherry on top. So I put it this way, like, unless you have something to rave about, there's the trademark doesn't mean anything because the trademark just attaches to the value of the result. So, the value of the result has to come before the trademark, then the trademark, of course, and say, okay, the value comes from this trademark, but 1st.

Erin Austin: You have to establish the value and so if there are limited resources, some of you may have many resources. If you have limited resources, then make sure you're focusing on copyrights. Um, and then the trademarks are. A nice to have, but not a must have. And, um, and, you know, I am not a trademark lawyer and I will say on behalf of my trademark, uh, lawyer colleagues that they will say this that if there is a trademark that it would just hurt you in your soul.

Erin Austin: If somebody else got it and took it from you, then get it registered. Um, but if there is another term that could. You know, um, work just as well, almost always there is, um, then, you know, focus on making sure you're creating value for your clients, becoming the go to person in your space. Um, if you are serving corporate clients, you know, they will know who you are.

Erin Austin: It's not they were not. They're not Googling you. Um, you know, they're not going off of. Uh, of, you know, how many, you know, SEO, right? Um, that's warm introduction sales and all the things that require, um, getting to build your reputation. So that is what I have for you today. Um, I don't see any comments in the comment box.

Erin Austin: I'm happy to. Take any questions if you have them

Erin Austin: and if you don't, uh, you can find out, you know, what some of the things that I mentioned are things that are probably copyrightable because not everything that we create, not all the content we create. Is copyrightable and so I have created a, an assessment, a free assessment tool that will determine whether or not your expertise is copyrightable.

Erin Austin: So please feel free to go to my website, thinkbeyondip. com and there you can sign up, um, for my newsletter and for podcast updates. And you will also get your, is your expertise copyrightable. Assessment, so thank you all for joining me. Um, I, if you have any questions, just shoot them to me, either on LinkedIn or I think beyond.

Erin Austin: I. P. Aaron, I think beyond. I. P. dot com and I will hope to address them in the next LinkedIn live. Thanks so much.