How can you protect yourself and your clients from brand copycats? I recently had some major issues with a copycat and had to take action FAST in order to protect my business and brand. In this episode, learn what you can do to proactively defend your agency and clients’ intellectual property.

In this episode, we’ll cover:

• • What is and what isn’t intellectual property?
  • Why register your agency’s brand assets?
  • Tools and tips to keep your assets protected.

Today’s guest is Cheryl Hodgson, founder of Hodgson Legal and BrandAide.com. She’s an attorney, advisor, author and expert on everything related to brand protection. Cheryl specializes in intellectual property and brand assets. And, she shares advice protecting your and your clients’ brand assets. Cheryl touches on everything from copyrights and trademarks to goods/service names and domain names.

What Is and What Isn’t Intellectual Property?

Cheryl says often the term “Intellectual Property” is misunderstood. Legally, this term only applies to assets in five specific areas:

1. Brand Names: This is one of the most important assets a business owns. It’s a unique identifier with a long life and requires protection. Cheryl says most businesses don’t put enough time into developing names. They settle on it with little thought. But Cheryl advises seeing what’s already out there to avoid conflicts before you settle on a brand or business name.
2. Copyright: Any artistic expression of an idea is copyright protectable and includes things such as programs and content. Without the registering you have rights but no remedy.
3. Patents: Things like inventions and software are patentable. Patents are exclusive rights granted for a product or a process that provides a new way of doing something or offers a new technical solution to a problem.
4. Confidential Information: Any private or classified business information can be intellectual property – things like lists, non-disclosure agreements, confidentiality agreements, etc. that should not be shared without your permission.
5. Domain Names: In most cases, a web address is more important than a physical address. Domain names are a business asset and need protection.

Why Register Your Agency’s Brand Assets?

The biggest reason to register is because it adds value to your agency. No matter whether you’re considering selling in the near future or the long distant future, owning your intellectual property increases your agency’s value. That’s what buyers care about most – sales, revenue and assets.

Another great reason to register is to protect your turf. Cheryl shared a story about a former client who failed to register his brand and lost out big time! He started AmazonNetworks.com back in the early 90’s on the cusp of the internet boom. A short time later, a business named Amazon Book Sellers was founded. Initially there was no conflict but as Amazon Book Sellers grew they decided to register their brand. As you can imagine, eventually AmazonNetworks.com was sued and forced out of business.

[clickToTweet tweet=”Why register your brand and services? Without a trademark, your brand identity becomes diluted.” quote=”Why register your brand and services? Without a trademark, your brand identity becomes diluted.”]

Tools and Tips to Protect Your Agency

Your brand assets and intellectual property are your unique identifiers. When it becomes popular the value becomes diluted and it no longer distinguishes your goods or services from others. Registering and monitoring use of your brand names protects your brand’s identity. When naming goods or services, do your due diligence to see what else is already out there:

• Search the United States Patent and Trademark Office database and find what is already registered.
• Monitor Google Alerts with brand/product names or terms specific to your brand.

If you discover a copycat (like I did) of your registered assets, there’s a few different courses of action you can consider:

• Simple, careless plagiarism can start with a direct phone call or email to the offender.
• Handle blatantly egregious or fraudulent activity with a letter from an attorney.

Can You Force Someone to Release a Domain Name?

This is always a tricky topic. Cheryl says a domain name on it’s own is just like your street address… You can’t do about anything if someone is just parked on it. However if someone is using a name you own for commercial use, you do have rights and protection. Likewise if you have a successful product or service, competitors or related businesses will try to duplicate what you’re doing by using a similar domain name with a different extension (.net, .org, etc.)

A Domain Dispute Resolution is a cost effective way to recapture your rights and avoid expensive court proceedings. Cheryl suggests speaking to a law professional or checking out the National Arbitration Forum or WIPO.

#1 Biggest Branding Mistake Agencies Are Making

There’s one major mistake Cheryl sees over and over –  a lot of marketing agencies and brands do not use trademarks correctly in their marketing materials. In fact, Cheryl says it’s so common that she has created a PDF guide to help you. You can grab Cheryl’s Marketing Professionals Guide to Brand Use, her Brand Protection Assessment and a FREE chapter of her book by clicking here.

Need Guidance and Support to Grow Your Agency Faster?

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We do this by bringing together successful agency leaders to share strategies, offer advice, and reveal what’s working (and what’s not working) in their agency. The truth is, whatever you want to accomplish in life, nothing will help you go further, faster than getting the right adviser in the context of motivated peers. If you want to GROW fast and smart, Digital Agency Elite mastermind will help.

Building Your Digital Agency Better

Protecting your intellectual property is just one important aspect of creating the best business possible, you need to look at your agency in the bigger picture to find your strong areas as well as weak spots and then think of how you can fix them. No matter what challenges your agency is facing, I can help you get through all of it.

Through my experience running my own digital agency and helping other digital agency owners, there are many topics I can offer guidance on whether you are an established agency facing struggles to new agencies unsure of what the different phases of growth you will experience will look like.

Growing your agency team can also be a major struggle for any agency owner and I can show from knowing when it’s time to hire a sales manager or expand your sales team to perfecting your business strategy with creating a process for performance-based pricing and how to keep your big-name clients happy.

Are you ready to create something cool and want more advice? Learn about my career and different experiences as well as tips, tricks and insights by checking out my blogs that cover a wide variety of topics.

Check out more from my Ask Swenk series and more of my videos on my YouTube channel. There you will find advice from myself and other agency experts.