Know Your Rights: Your IP and Business Law Playbook

Know Your Rights: Your IP and Business Law Playbook

di Julie King

Lavoro Educazione

Stagione 2025

Is it Love? Unusual Love-Related Inventions

Valentine’s Day brings out all kinds of creativity—and some people even turn romance intopatented inventions! Let’s look at some of the strangest love-related patents everfiled. I’ve kept these suitable for all ages so any little ones overhearing this won’t learn new and exciting inappropriate things to say at school. This Valentine’s Day week I’m talking about the intellectual property of love, but what I’m saying applies year-round.

Trademarks Can Break Your Heart

Have you ever wondered if someoneowns romantic phrases like “Be Mine,” “I Love You,” or “Kiss Me”? Phrases can be protected by trademark law, but only sometimes. The candy heart for this topic says “it depends.” This Valentine’s Day week I’m talking about the intellectual property of love, but what I’m saying applies year-round.

I Give You My Heart, But Not My Copyright

Valentine’s Day can be a time for romance, chocolates, and . . . copyright law? That’s right! If you pour your heart into a sincere love letter, a romantic poem, a beautiful painting, or even a heartfelt social media post, copyright laws are automatically involved. Who actually owns those expressions of love? The creator, the person they are intended to impress, or someone else? This Valentine’s Day week I’m talking about the intellectual property of love, but what I’m saying applies year-round and to far more than love letters.

Marketing Without Getting Sued: Quick Tips every Small Business Must Know

Be careful with how you advertise, or you could violate copyright or trademark laws. Learn to avoid that.

That Name or Logo You’re Using? It May Be Trademark Infringement!

💥 Imagine spending thousands on branding and marketing, only to get a cease-and-desist letter because your business name, logo, slogan, or other piece of brand identity is too close to someone else’s. 💥 That’s called trademark infringement, and it can shut you down and cost you a bundle. Let’s make sure that doesn’t happen to you.

Are You Stealing Without Knowing It? Copyright Infringement in Marketing

🚨 Did you know that using the wrong image, song, or video clip in your marketing could land you in a lawsuit? 🚨 Copyright infringement doesn’t just happen to big corporations—it’s a major risk for small businesses too. Today, I’ll walk you through how to stay safe. This applies if you create your own marketing content or if you have your internal marketing department or hire a marketing service to do it for you. If you use the wrong thing, YOU’RE going to be the one in trouble. (I’ll have another post later on protecting yourself from someone else’s mistake.)

Do you REALLY Own Your Business Name?

You put a great deal of effort in choosing the perfect name for your business. You registered the business with the Secretary of State in every state in which you operate. That’s all you need to own your business name, right? Wrong. Most if not all states’ business registration offices don’t even check their state’s own trademark databases when approving a name for LLC/corporation/partnership registration to see if there is a conflict, let alone check the federal USPTO trademark database. . . . If this post scared you a bit, it was supposed to. Most people don’t know about this incredibly important information, and that makes them vulnerable to expensive and devastating problems. Now you aren’t one of those people, and you know what you need to do to prevent those problems! I hope this helps you feel empowered and inspired to take action if you don’t already have your business name registered as a trademark. You deserve to have that peace of mind!

Riffs of Risk: Are you using a "personal" account for your business on social media?

This episode is about the pitfalls of using music on your personal social media accounts to promote your business and how to avoid them.

How a Patent Dies

For the Day of the Dead, the last in this year's spooky-themed Patrifying Patents episode. This one is about how patent applications and issued patents can die, either by a premature visit from the Grim Reaper or of old age natural causes.

Gravely Grim

Buckle up my beasties! This Halloween night episode helps you learn more about patents by digging into patents for strange burials, exploding graves, creepy dolls, and more! Happy Halloween! 👻

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