Anna Brewin from Amanya IP and Amanya Design is joined by guests to talk about Intellectual Property (IP) in everyday life. IP can be a boring subject until it becomes personal. Anna is joined by her guests to talk about IP in areas of creativity, business and entrepreneurship, hearing from legal professionals as well as hearing people's stories that involve IP. #ip2life
Take the Quiz: How IP Smart are you? https://bit.ly/ip-smart-quiz
This second show is the second part of the conversation were I, Anna Brewin, from Amanya IP and Amanya Design was joined by a solicitor, Jiri Svorc, where we talked about best practice in IP and he shared some horror stories where things have gone terribly wrong…
www.amanyaipcourses.com
0.00 Introduction 0.52 Snippet of today’s show 1.21 Example of an exhibition showing a private collection of a company’s work 3.27 Key takeaway of situation with the exhibition 4.43 If you’d like to know more 6.14 Jiri’s advice to his younger self about IP 8.55 Professional help 9.58 Thank you for joining us on the show
Do you want to know more about IP? Check out www.amanyaipcourses.com where you'll be able to discover more about how to become #ipsmart. All the content is checked by legal professionals, but written in everyday language.
Anna's journey in IP started through her protecting her own work as a designer and has grown into her helping adults, young people, students, designers, artists, business owners and entrepreneurs to become IP smart to enable them to protect their dreams.
Anna:
Welcome to bringing IP to life. I'm Anna from Amanya IP and Amanya Design, and I'm joined by my guests to talk about IP. We're going to hear people's stories of their creativity, business, and entrepreneurship. Intellectual property can be a really dull subject, until it becomes personal. This is aimed to help see the relevance of IP in everyday life. Welcome to the show. We're joined together by Jiri again. If those of you that joined us from the first show, will know that he was giving us some gems from his experience and we're going back to hear some more. So Jiri, you shared with us various things about things that have gone wrong last time. And here's a little snippet of our conversation today.
Jiri:
Just because you have an idea or just because you think you've created something unique, this doesn't necessarily always mean, that it passes the relevant legal tests and that it can be protected and enforced.
Anna:
So thank you, Jiri. And we have another example that you shared with me about a famous fruit company. So go for it.
Jiri:
Yeah. So again, still with this firm, still in Prague, still 2012, 2013. I was involved in advising a client, which is a popular software and hardware technology company. It's a very popular one. I'm sure that your listeners and your viewers will be familiar with it. Now, this client has obviously an extensive portfolio of it's registered IP. They have a huge portfolio of patents, trademarks, registered designs. And as it happens, they take quite an aggressive approach in enforcing those rights. Now, until 2019, there was a museum in central Prague, which was essentially an exhibition of a large private collection of the company's products dating from 1976 to 2012. Now, this museum, this private collection was by no means affiliated with the client, but as it happens, due to its popularity, the client noticed, and it wasn't very happy with it because they felt, that their trademarks and their products were used in a way which they had no control over and thus, as a result, their trademarks were being diluted. So they approached the firm seeking advice on what steps they could have taken in relation to that museum.
Anna:
Wow. Wow. So with the advice you gave to the company and all the situation that happened there, what were the things that viewers and listeners can learn from that you advised the company and that they can learn from this scenario?
Jiri:
So I think the key takeaway here is that your listeners and your viewers, should always seek proper permission to use someone else's IP. Even if they're not necessarily damaging, the other person's IP, you should bear in mind that even non detrimental free riding on someone else's IP may still constitute IP infringement and it may simply not be desirable by the IP holder as it may dilute that person's intellectual property. In most cases, IP holders register their IP because they want to stay in control of how that IP is used. As I mentioned in the previous show, you want to stay in control of your IP and you want to make sure that you're getting remunerated in case you decide to permit that someone else uses it. So yeah, as I mentioned, the key takeaway here is that you should always seek proper permission.
Anna:
Yes, these are things, these are lessons that are great to know in retrospect and know that these things have gone wrong, but if people can learn from these examples that have happened, then they're less likely to get into the same hot water. So thank you, Jiri. Thank you. So we have one more question to ask Jiri before we, before we close for the night. Before we hear any more about this, we're just going to have a pause for a second and I'm going to tell you a little something for you to look at if you want to know more about IP, just take a look at this. If you'd like to know more about intellectual property or IP, check out the Amanya IP website at www.amanyaipcourses.com Courses vary from general basic understanding about IP for adults, young people, and students through to professional courses and courses for the USA market. The courses are aimed to help young people, students, designers, artists, business owners, and entrepreneurs become IP smart to enable them to protect their dreams. So tell me, Jiri, if you were speaking to your younger self about IP, what would you tell him that you've learned today that you think he would benefit from.
Jiri:
Yeah, this is, this is quite a tricky one. And that's something I've started telling clients more often quite recently. And that it's simply the point that you should recognize that not all IP is protectable and enforceable. Now, as a solicitor, as a legal professional, you don't want to be telling clients something that they're not prepared to hear, but that's also part of your job. So back to IP, just because you have an idea or just because you think you've created something unique, this doesn't necessarily always mean that it passes the relevant legal tests and that it can be protected and enforced. Similarly, just because you've registered some design, that doesn't necessarily mean that you can claim exclusivity over the whole category of products. And I have a great example for this last time I spoke about being involved in advising this global manufacturer of plastic clogs. I mentioned that this company has a huge portfolio of trademarks and designs literally covering all of their main product lines. And they're very, very diligent in protecting their IP and their registered designs and trademarks essentially give them exclusivity with the respect to those specific designs. However, design registrations do not apply to designs that are merely similar. They only apply to designs that are identical. As a result, this company then cannot prevent other manufacturers from making and selling plastic clogs per se, or plastic clogs of different designs, even if such designs are similar. In other words, they cannot enjoy exclusivity or monopoly over the whole, over the entire class. And sometimes, unfortunately, clients don't get this right. They think that, you know, if I registered this design, then it will grant me rights over the product itself, over the whole class of products. Well, no, that's not necessarily the case. So it's important that you always seek professional advice.
Anna:
Yes. Yes. Well, that's the thing, isn't it? You, you can think, you know how this is all protected, but seeking the professional help is where you can get it all clarified and sorted out. So thank you, Jiri. Thank you very much. So I just want to say thank you Jiri for joining us today and for the last show as well. It's been a pleasure having you with us. And I don't think this will be the last time we have you on this show. So, thank you to the listeners for listening. And we've reached the end of this show. And please make sure that you follow and subscribe so you don't miss the next one. And like it if you've enjoyed the show. And get in touch if you, if there's things you want to know about more. And if you have any questions, get in touch. I'm very happy to hear from you. Next time we'll be hearing from one of my guests. We're going to talk about IP in her life and how she protected her own work through intellectual property. So thank you very much Jiri for joining us and we'll see you next time.
Jiri:
Until next time.
Anna:
Thank you. Bye. Thanks for joining us on the show. Like, follow and subscribe to make sure you hear about what's coming up next. You can head over to the website www. amanyaipcourses. com to find out more. See you again soon.
