Avoid the Legal Horrors with Julie King: Patent, Trademark, and Business Strategy

What’s the intellectual property horror lurking in the closet that gets overlooked the most? Welcome to the final, and perhaps most terrifying, week of Spooky Season. We’ve talked about how patents, trademarks, and trade dress are all massive business assets. But too often, people spend a good deal of time and money protecting those assets, but then they leave their future value to chance.

I'm talking about the Grave Truth of Succession. Your intellectual property does not die with you. The question is: Will it transfer smoothly to the right person or entity, or will it be tied up in probate hell? When an IP owner dies, some of their most valuable intangible assets, their patents, their trademarks, can become legally trapped, or worse, split between co-owners who can't agree, sucking the value right out of the business. You need a plan, or your legacy may become a legal horror story.

In this episode:

• Let the Right One In: Individual vs. Entity Ownership (1:01)
• The Nightmare on Patent Inheritance Street (2:01)
• Night of the Living Dead Trademark (4:15)
• The Phantom of the Lost Trade Secret (7:04)
• Your Silver Bullet: Planning and Documentation (8:48)

Your IP is your legacy. Plan for its succession, or it could be buried forever.

Intellectual property is one of the most terrifyingly useful tools you have. If you're a creator or other entrepreneur ready to build a frighteningly powerful brand, you need to know how to use it.

You don't have to face the darkness alone. To learn more about protecting your creations, your name, your business, and your legacy, you can book a consultation with me at kingpatentlaw.com. I help entrepreneurs across the U.S. make smart, legally sound decisions about their intellectual property. I'm an attorney in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, and I serve intellectual property clients nationwide.

If this episode helped you survive the horror of learning about how to protect and manage your intellectual property and business, please like and subscribe! You can find all of my other frighteningly good content on the King Patent Law website, at "Know Your Rights: Your IP and Business Law Playbook" on all major podcast platforms, and at @kingpatentlaw on most social media.

The information provided in this episode is for educational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice or form an attorney-client relationship. You should not act on any information presented here without first seeking the counsel of a licensed attorney for your specific legal needs.

#kingpatentlaw #julieking #intellectualproperty #patent #trademark #tradesecrets #estateplanning #businesstips #brand #branding #horror #halloween #spookyseason

The most powerful strategy for protecting the design of a physical product is the dual protection of a design patent and trade dress.

1. Start with the patent: File the design patent application early for a 15-year period of exclusivity.

2. Build the trade dress: Once your product has been around long enough for the public to recognize the design as an indicator of your brand, you have the acquired distinctiveness from secondary meaning needed for trade dress protection.

The Result: When the patent expires, your now-famous look is protected by your perpetually renewable trade dress trademark registration. It's a seamlessly handed-off protection that ensures your unique product can be protected as long as it’s around.

If this episode helped you survive the horror of learning about how to protect and manage your intellectual property and business, please like and subscribe!

Intellectual property is one of the most terrifyingly useful tools you have. If you're a creator or other entrepreneur ready to build a frighteningly powerful brand, you need to know how to use it.

You don't have to face the darkness alone. To learn more about protecting your creations, your name, your business, and your legacy, you can book a consultation with me at kingpatentlaw.com. I help entrepreneurs across the U.S. make smart, legally sound decisions about their intellectual property. I'm an attorney in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, and I serve intellectual property clients nationwide.

You can find all of my other frighteningly good content on the King Patent Law website, at "Know Your Rights: Your IP and Business Law Playbook" on all major podcast platforms, and at @kingpatentlaw on most social media.

The information provided in this episode is for educational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice or form an attorney-client relationship. You should not act on any information presented here without first seeking the counsel of a licensed attorney for your specific legal needs.

#kingpatentlaw #julieking #intellectualproperty #patent #designpatent #trademark #tradedress #horror #halloween #spookyseason

Both design patents and trade dress have one unfortunate thing in common: functionality of the design can be a killer.

You cannot protect a design feature if it is essential to the product's use or purpose.

The Test: If a unique shape makes the product work better, cheaper, or easier, it's functional and cannot be protected by Trade Dress and will be much harder to protect with a Design Patent.

For example, if the scent of Play-Doh were a byproduct of how it’s made or its essential ingredients, it couldn’t be protected as a trade dress trademark.

If a uniquely thick and textured spoon handle makes it easier for witches with arthritis to grip and stir what’s in their cauldrons, that is functional and belongs in a utility patent. It’s the essential part of the function of the ergonomic handle, so both design patent and trade dress protection for the appearance of the handle are prohibited. However, if the texture just needs to exist and can be in any format, the texture being in a pattern of, say, repeating bats, that pattern on the handle could be protected by a design patent or as trade dress.

The Lesson: If your design is purely aesthetic, a style choice, it's protectable. If it's utilitarian, a necessity, or unavoidable, like a particular color or scent caused by manufacture, it is not. If this episode helped you survive the horror of learning about how to protect and manage your intellectual property and business, please like and subscribe!

Intellectual property is one of the most terrifyingly useful tools you have. If you're a creator or other entrepreneur ready to build a frighteningly powerful brand, you need to know how to use it.

You don't have to face the darkness alone. To learn more about protecting your creations, your name, your business, and your legacy, you can book a consultation with me at kingpatentlaw.com. I help entrepreneurs across the U.S. make smart, legally sound decisions about their intellectual property. I'm an attorney in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, and I serve intellectual property clients nationwide.

You can find all of my other frighteningly good content on the King Patent Law website, at "Know Your Rights: Your IP and Business Law Playbook" on all major podcast platforms, and at @kingpatentlaw on most social media.

The information provided in this episode is for educational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice or form an attorney-client relationship. You should not act on any information presented here without first seeking the counsel of a licensed attorney for your specific legal needs.

#kingpatentlaw #julieking #intellectualproperty #trademark #tradedress #patent #designpatent #horror #halloween #spookyseason

Trade Dress is a type of trademark that protects the overall look and feel of a product or its packaging. It’s the brand's persistent visual identity.

What it Protects: Elements like a product's distinctive shape, size, color combination, texture, or even the layout of a retail store (think the distinctive look of a McDonald's). The iconic, curvy shape of the Coca-Cola bottle is the textbook example of protected trade dress for product packaging.

The Power: If it successfully identifies the source of your goods to consumers, protection can last indefinitely, as long as you continue to use and defend the mark.

The Catch: It must be non-functional (it can't be required for the product to work better), and for product design itself, it must have Acquired Distinctiveness (Secondary Meaning). This means you have to prove to the USPTO that customers associate that unique shape only with your brand. This takes years of marketing and sales.

If this episode helped you survive the horror of learning about how to protect and manage your intellectual property and business, please like and subscribe!

Intellectual property is one of the most terrifyingly useful tools you have. If you're a creator or other entrepreneur ready to build a frighteningly powerful brand, you need to know how to use it.

You don't have to face the darkness alone. To learn more about protecting your creations, your name, your business, and your legacy, you can book a consultation with me at kingpatentlaw.com. I help entrepreneurs across the U.S. make smart, legally sound decisions about their intellectual property. I'm an attorney in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, and I serve intellectual property clients nationwide.

You can find all of my other frighteningly good content on the King Patent Law website, at "Know Your Rights: Your IP and Business Law Playbook" on all major podcast platforms, and at @kingpatentlaw on most social media.

The information provided in this episode is for educational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice or form an attorney-client relationship. You should not act on any information presented here without first seeking the counsel of a licensed attorney for your specific legal needs.

#kingpatentlaw #julieking #intellectualproperty #trademark #tradedress #brand #branding #horror #halloween #spookyseason

Here’s a Petrifying Patent Fact: For protecting a product, most people only think of utility patents, which protect how something works. But there's also a powerful tool for protecting how it looks: the design patent.

A Design Patent protects the ornamental appearance of an article of manufacture. Think of it as a blueprint for the eye.

• What it Protects: The specific shape, configuration, or surface ornamentation of a product. It's purely aesthetic, not functional.

• The Power: It gives you a 15-year monopoly to prevent others from making, using, or selling a product that is "substantially similar" to your patented design.

• The Advantage: You can get this protection early. Since design patents don't require proof of marketing success, you can file the application before your product even hits the market, giving you a strong, 15-year head start.

• The Catch: It expires. After 15 years, the ornamental design enters the public domain.

If this episode helped you survive the horror of learning about how to protect and manage your intellectual property and business, please like and subscribe!

Intellectual property is one of the most terrifyingly useful tools you have. If you're a creator or other entrepreneur ready to build a frighteningly powerful brand, you need to know how to use it.

You don't have to face the darkness alone. To learn more about protecting your creations, your name, your business, and your legacy, you can book a consultation with me at kingpatentlaw.com. I help entrepreneurs across the U.S. make smart, legally sound decisions about their intellectual property. I'm an attorney in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, and I serve intellectual property clients nationwide.

You can find all of my other frighteningly good content on the King Patent Law website, at "Know Your Rights: Your IP and Business Law Playbook" on all major podcast platforms, and at @kingpatentlaw on most social media.

The information provided in this episode is for educational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice or form an attorney-client relationship. You should not act on any information presented here without first seeking the counsel of a licensed attorney for your specific legal needs.

#kingpatentlaw #julieking #intellectualproperty #patent #designpatent #horror #halloween #spookyseason

How do you protect how your product looks? Today we’re tackling the Two-Headed Monster of Design IP: design patents and trade dress trademarks.

This is where serious protection and some serious money is for innovators in product manufacturing and design.

I’m Julie King of King Patent Law, and welcome to week 4 of this year’s Spooky Season posts!

This week’s topic covers an often-neglected but important way of using intellectual property law to protect your business, which is protecting how your products look.

Utility patents protect how a product works; design IP protects how a product looks. You may need two different types of protection to fully keep your product safe from copycats: design patents and trade dress trademarks.

In this episode:

• Head 1: The Design Patent (0:52)
• What a Design Patent Protects (1:05)
• The Power and Advantages of a Design Patent (1:35)
• The Drawbacks of Design Patents (2:52)
• Head 2: The Trade Dress Trademark (3:48)
• What a Trade Dress Trademark Protects (3:59)
• The Power and Advantages of Trade Dress Protection (4:46)
• The Drawbacks of Trade Dress (5:08)
• Two Heads Are Better Than One: Why You Need Both (6:42)

Intellectual property is one of the most terrifyingly useful tools you have. If you're a creator or other entrepreneur ready to build a frighteningly powerful brand, you need to know how to use it.

You don't have to face the darkness alone. To learn more about protecting your creations, your name, your business, and your legacy, you can book a consultation with me at kingpatentlaw.com. I help entrepreneurs across the U.S. make smart, legally sound decisions about their intellectual property. I'm an attorney in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, and I serve intellectual property clients nationwide.

If this episode helped you survive the horror of learning about how to protect and manage your intellectual property and business, please like and subscribe!

You can find all of my other frighteningly good content on the King Patent Law website, at "Know Your Rights: Your IP and Business Law Playbook" on all major podcast platforms, and at @kingpatentlaw on most social media.

The information provided in this episode is for educational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice or form an attorney-client relationship. You should not act on any information presented here without first seeking the counsel of a licensed attorney for your specific legal needs.

#kingpatentlaw #julieking #intellectualproperty #patent #designpatent #trademark #tradedress #brand #branding #horror #halloween #spookyseason

Trademark genericide is a real-life horror story! What happens when your brand is too good? It dies of success!

Genericide is the legal process where a trademark (like the original name for aspirin) becomes the common name for an entire type of product. The public no longer thinks of the brand; they think of the item itself.

The Tragic Tale of the Escalator: The word Escalator was once a trademark owned by the Otis Elevator Company. Because consumers started using "escalator" to describe any moving staircase, Otis eventually lost the trademark in 1950. Now, any company can use the word.

The Fix: You must always link your brand name to the generic product name.

• BAD: "Let's take the Escalator."

• GOOD: "Let's take the Otis® brand escalator."

Use your trademark as an adjective, not a noun. Never let your customers use your brand name as a verb! (e.g., Don't "photoshop" that image; use Adobe® Photoshop® software to edit that image.)

You don't have to face the darkness alone. To learn more about protecting your creations, your name, your business, and your legacy, you can book a consultation with me at kingpatentlaw.com.

I help entrepreneurs across the U.S. make smart, legally sound decisions about their intellectual property. I'm an attorney in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, and I serve intellectual property clients nationwide.

If this episode helped you survive the horror of learning about how to protect and manage your intellectual property and business, please like and subscribe!

You can find all of my other frighteningly good content on the King Patent Law website, at "Know Your Rights: Your IP and Business Law Playbook " on all major podcast platforms, and at @kingpatentlaw on most social media.

The information provided in this episode is for educational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice or form an attorney-client relationship. You should not act on any information presented here without first seeking the counsel of a licensed attorney for your specific legal needs.

#trademark #intellectualproperty #kingpatentlaw #julieking #trademarktalesofterror #horror #spookyseason #halloween

Trademark Terror for T-Shirt Tycoons!

If you’re a designer, a band, or anyone else making and selling apparel, one of the biggest, scariest mistakes you can make is confusing Decoration with Brand Identification.

The Ornamental Trap

To be granted trademark registration, the mark must function as a source identifier. That means consumers must look at the name, logo, or slogan and think: "This is the company that made or sold this."

Here's the terrifying truth about apparel:

1. Ornamental Use is Decoration, Not a Brand: If you print a catchy phrase (like "STAY CREEPY") or a large design prominently across the front of a shirt, the USPTO will usually consider that ornamental use (decoration). People buy it because they like the saying, not because they think the saying is the name of the clothing manufacturer.

2. No Exclusive Rights for Decoration: Unless your mark is already famous (like Nike's JUST DO IT), you cannot stop others from using the exact same phrase ornamentally on their shirts. You were just the first to decorate.

How to Prove You’re a Brand, Not Just a Decorator

To get your mark federally registered on the Principal Register, you must show proper trademark use. Consumers are conditioned to look for the brand in specific, subtle places.

The Ghost (Ornamental Use)

• A large, dominant logo on the chest or back.
• A catchy, full-front slogan (e.g., "Too Spooky for this Planet").
• The design on a coffee mug or poster (decoration).

The Source (Trademark Use)

• A small, discrete logo on a pocket or breast.
• The name on a sewn-in neck tag or label (where the size and washing instructions are).
• The brand name on a hang tag, sticker, or the packaging used to hold the item.

If you're building a clothing line, make sure your brand name or logo is visible in the source-identifying location on the garment itself (the tag, the collar, the hem). That's your best proof that your mark is an actual trademark, not just a spooky apparition!

You don't have to face the darkness alone. To learn more about protecting your creations, your name, your business, and your legacy, you can book a consultation with me at kingpatentlaw.com.

I help entrepreneurs across the U.S. make smart, legally sound decisions about their intellectual property. I'm an attorney in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, and I serve intellectual property clients nationwide.

If this episode helped you survive the horror of learning about how to protect and manage your intellectual property and business, please like and subscribe!

You can find all of my other frighteningly good content on the King Patent Law website, at "Know Your Rights: Your IP and Business Law Playbook " on all major podcast platforms, and at @kingpatentlaw on most social media.

The information provided in this episode is for educational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice or form an attorney-client relationship. You should not act on any information presented here without first seeking the counsel of a licensed attorney for your specific legal needs.

#trademark #intellectualproperty #kingpatentlaw #julieking #trademarktalesofterror #horror #spookyseason #halloween

Unlike patents, trademarks can live forever. Patents (like the one for the Ouija board's mechanism) die after about 20 years. Trademarks (like the one for the Oujia brand name) can last forever, provided you keep using them and file the necessary maintenance documents with the USPTO.

A trademark is the only major IP registration that can be renewed indefinitely. This perpetual life is why names like Ouija or Universal Monsters are still highly valuable business assets a century later.

The only magic you have to work to keep the rights alive is to submit your maintenance documents and fees when they’re due, which is at 5 years, 10 years, and every 10 years after that. As the renewal talisman, you have to show examples of the mark in use with the goods or services it’s registered for.

The catch? You must actively use and police your mark. If you stop using it, or if you stop enforcing it against infringers, your mark can become an abandoned "ghost brand."

I help entrepreneurs across the U.S. make smart, legally sound decisions about their intellectual property. I'm an attorney in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, and I serve intellectual property clients nationwide.

If this episode helped you survive the horror of learning about how to protect and manage your intellectual property and business, please like and subscribe!

You can find all of my other frighteningly good content on the King Patent Law website, at "Know Your Rights: Your IP and Business Law Playbook " on all major podcast platforms, and at @kingpatentlaw on most social media.

The information provided in this episode is for educational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice or form an attorney-client relationship. You should not act on any information presented here without first seeking the counsel of a licensed attorney for your specific legal needs.

#trademark #intellectualproperty #kingpatentlaw #julieking #trademarktalesofterror #horror #spookyseason #halloween

Trademarks aren’t limited to the words connected with a brand. Visual elements like logos, packaging, and unique shapes, like a Coca-Cola bottle, can be trademarks, too.

The Universal Monsters movies are protected by a slew of trademark and copyright registrations. Most of the images of the monsters are protected by copyright.

However, Universal also registered the appearance of the Wolfman character as a trademark (Reg. No. 1681501), for “entertainment services in the nature of individuals in costume who entertain at amusement parks.” They did the same for their version of Dracula (Reg. No 3529543), Frankenstein’s monster (Reg. No. 1705502), the Bride of Frankenstein (Reg. No. 1710492), and the Mummy (Reg. No. 3529544). Sadly, they let the registration for the Creature from the Black Lagoon for the same thing expire in 2016 (Reg. No. 1707310). For these registrations, since it’s for people in costume, the drawings are more of a “general gist” of the marks, and the examples of use just have to look pretty similar.

They also have applied just this summer to register the Wolfman (Serial Nos. 99299793, 99299795, and 99299792) and Dracula (Serial Nos. 99299788, 99299785, and 99299781) characters as trademarks for a host of foods and clothing.

I want to pause to note that one of the foods is “meat tenderizers for household purposes.”

The description of the Dracula image is “The mark consists of a male figure wearing a formal suit with a prominent, high-collared cape draped over his shoulders. He is standing with his arms slightly outstretched.”

For the Wolf Man, it’s “The mark consists of a male figure standing, facing forward with his arms slightly outstretched. His head and neck are covered in a dense, shaggy mane of dark fur. His hands, also covered in fur, end in claws. He is dressed in a long-sleeved shirt with two pockets on the chest, and loose-fitting pants.”

What does this mean for you? If you have a highly recognizable image associated with your brand, it doesn’t have to be a logo to be registered as a trademark. However, to get the maximum protection for it, you must register it as a design mark to protect its unique look from copycats. Your aesthetic is your asset!

You don't have to face the darkness alone. To learn more about protecting your creations, your name, your business, and your legacy, you can book a consultation with me at kingpatentlaw.com.

I help entrepreneurs across the U.S. make smart, legally sound decisions about their intellectual property. I'm an attorney in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, and I serve intellectual property clients nationwide.

If this episode helped you survive the horror of learning about how to protect and manage your intellectual property and business, please like and subscribe!

You can find all of my other frighteningly good content on the King Patent Law website, at "Know Your Rights: Your IP and Business Law Playbook " on all major podcast platforms, and at @kingpatentlaw on most social media.

The information provided in this episode is for educational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice or form an attorney-client relationship. You should not act on any information presented here without first seeking the counsel of a licensed attorney for your specific legal needs.

#trademark #intellectualproperty #kingpatentlaw #julieking #trademarktalesofterror #horror #spookyseason #halloween