Crowdfunding is on the rise as an approach to raising money for business ventures, but Lawrence Robins and Chris McWhinney of Sullivan & Worcester warn that any individual or startup wanting to get in on crowdfunding also has to think about the intellectual property components of a campaign.
Here are some of their things to consider before kick-starting your next project:
- Patents: “Disclosing the details of an invention before filing a patent application may bar patent protection,” explain the authors. This can directly interfere with a requirement of Kickstarter.com, a popular crowdfunding platform, to demonstrate as much as possible about what is going into the making of a product. To circumvent this dilemma, Robins and McWhinney suggest filing a patent application as early as possible, and before disclosing anything about the project.
- Trademarks: Putting a trademark on a business plan doesn’t establish its date of first use if there is a dispute over it later, say Robins and McWhinney. Instead, doing so can be a signal to trademark pirates to file for registration first. “Consider filing a U.S. trademark application based on ‘intent to use’ prior to making a public disclosure of your project,” they suggest.
- Copyright: For your own copyright protection, registration is not necessary to protect the work, only for launching a suit for infringement. If other copyrighted works are to be included in a proposal, be sure to obtain licensing and permission first, say the authors.
