I think it's important to point out that the author is CEO of edisonlf.com, a law firm focused on suing IP infringers. I don't really think that cheapens any of his advice, and heck, he may have even decided to start the Edison business after dealing with so much infringement in his toy business. Still, he's not a disinterested party and he should have disclosed this more clearly in his article.
It does change the subtext of the whole article. Thank you for highlighting it.
It does read more like an article on "list of legal accessories you can add to a physical product to propup the chances in a IP lawsuit"... While smart, can't help but think this goes against the spirit of IP law.
As these legal accessories are a response to people who have no respect for the spirit of IP law, I, personally, am not particularly concerned by this. It has been attempts to get round the spirit of the law that has brought these accessories into existence.
Their web site makes it clear that they are not a law firm, they are a litigation finance firm. As I understand it, litigation financing takes away some of the financial risk from plaintiffs and/or attorneys by allowing them to borrow against a future return from a judgment or settlement. For plaintiffs, they can get access to money when a normal bank would not loan against an uncertain recovery. For law firms, they may be able to take cases on contingency without having to advance all of the costs of litigation. Loans are non-recourse, meaning that if the plaintiff loses, then the lender is not repaid and has no way to collect. As you might expect, the interest rates on these types of loans are incredibly high.
I would think of it as closer to an equity investment: they provide some of the capital and share in some of the upside. And they likely provide some of the things equity investors do: strategic advice, domain knowledge, access to their network, all of which may or may not have value.
In some jurisdictions they may need to structure and describe it as a loan. But a non-recourse high-interest variable-payback-schedule loan is really blurring the lines between equity and debt no matter what you call it.
> ... blurring the lines between equity and debt no matter what you call it.
I agree that calling litigation financing a loan may be misleading because it could look more like debt or equity, depending on the structure. If the premium is fixed, then it looks like a zero-coupon corporate bond, except with uncertain maturity. If the premium is a percentage of the recovered amount, then it looks more like a stock investment.
The structure will probably also depend on the entity being funded (a corporate entity, a law firm, or an individual plaintiff). For a law firm, there are ethical restrictions on fee-sharing with non-lawyers. For individuals, there may be consumer protection laws that apply. Also, if the structure looks like a loan then laws regulating lenders may apply.
I'm not an expert in this, I just know enough to know it's complicated.
It is literally litigation financing. As in "I don't have enough money to pay my lawyer, but my lawyer doesn't want to work on contingency, so please LEND me some money to pay upfront and I will pay you back later... if everything works out..."
It's litigation financing. It does exactly what it says it is.
You didn’t seem to grasp parent’s point. Debt and equity aren’t apples and oranges, they’re Fuji and Honeycrisp. What makes debt attractive as a lender is recourse, taking that away removes the incentive to lend without other reasons, reasons which invariably look a lot like the ones you would employ in the decision making process to take an equity stake.
It is interesting to see articles about how to protect your 6 years old product - being on the noble mission of training next generation of engineers - when you played with this kind of toy ca. 35 years ago.
Probably the fact that it was sold out in days of launch may - at least partially - be attributed to the fact that parents knew this kind of toy quite a bit already by heart...
...and of course due to the fact that this idea is well tested by time already.
The knock-offs he shows in the article don't just copy the flake form-factor though; they are blatant copies of the models and the marketing material. It's not just making a composable brick set; it's copying a Lego model piece by piece.
To me your comment promotes edisonlf.com more than the article because after reading the article and before reading your comment I had no idea about edisonlf.com.
It's hilarious to me because that seems like the type of statement a lawyer would tell you to make. It's concise and doesn't offer any information beyond being the exact truth.
I read the article and wouldn't have realized he has any affiliation, so it's not like he's schilling real hard or anything. There's a couple good points too. I've never heard of a provisional patent before.
That is an extremely common disclaimer for a non-lawyer to give, to the point that it has its own initialism IANAL, which is slightly unfortunate but very widely understood.
I think the implication is pretty clear: if need this information for a real practical purpose make sure you consult someone who actually is a lawyer.
I read this article expecting to hear about potential liability concerns, not IP protection. It seems to me that I remember playing with a toy quite like theirs as a child many years ago. Basically cheap poker chips with cuts around the edge so they can connect. So it seems quite unlikely that they'd try to protect that IP, since it probably wasn't their invention in the first place.
The designs that they show being copied by others are an interesting problem. I got bored of all the pictures and didn't compare one by one, but it seems like if you were to do a clean room design of a helicopter made of these snowflake chips, it would be legitimate to copy. I would guess they are suing this other company based on the copyright protection of their instruction manuals. Seems hard.
I'm quite glad my interests for developing products involve a healthy amount of algorithms rather than just pieces of plastic and instruction manuals. Success breeds competition, and in something like this I doubt it's feasible to compete on quality, only price, which is a hard battle.
> It seems to me that I remember playing with a toy quite like theirs as a child many years ago. Basically cheap poker chips with cuts around the edge so they can connect.
The concept definitely isn't new. Back in the 1990s, in Poland we had such "chips with cuts around the edge" added to bags of chips. See e.g. [0] or just search for "Star Wars Tazo". These were themed and intended to be collectibles, but they had these tiny cuts into their sides and we absolutely did use them for small construction projects.
Nice! I didn't realize they were so widely distributed. From my childhood, I only remember the Star Wars (with incisions) and Pokémon (without) series. There may have been others in Poland after these two, but I've stopped paying attention by then - the desire to spend pocket money on collectibles has then shifted to Magic: The Gathering cards in my cohort.
We had those too, they were called "Flippo's". They started off as plain disks, later on they added variations - extra large or thick ones, but also ones with the cuts around the edge.
So while the company in the article may have copyrights and trademarks and the like, I don't think their mechanism is / has been patented, due to (a very likely) prior art.
That was my first though on seeing the article also .. the chutzpah of writing the article like people are copying them .. when the presenting item is clearly a copy of existing children's toys from before. Then to hear this is a lawyer spruiking IP business .. stopped reading after that honestly
While definitely true, the Amazon screenshots at the bottom of the article are eye opening. They've copied the same shots of the same models. I suppose it makes sense - if you're going to copy a successful product you might as well also copy their (presumably successful) marketing strategy too.
We didn't invent interlocking plastic discs, but we did improve them and have a patent pending for that improvement. You're right that it is copyright for the helicopter. There is also a trademark infringement claim for "building flakes" vs. Brain Flakes®
What is your improvement? The products look the same, but it can be hard to tell in an image.
Without disclosing that you too are a copycat the article is a bit disingenuous.
I'm sure many of them went too far and are infringing your trademarks, but I'm equally sure that many others are knockoffs to the exact extent you are.
> What is your improvement? The products look the same, but it can be hard to tell in an image.
My grandma used to have the old ones when I visited as a kid. It's been a really long time, but I think the originals had deeper slots and the actual chips were a bit thinner. By making the slots shallower and the chips thicker they'd be less prone to bending which prevented them from fitting perfectly perpendicular after a bit of wear.
That kind of incremental improvement strikes me as the sort of thing that shouldn't be patentable. Can you really patent "changing the physical dimensions a bit so it fits better"?
> That kind of incremental improvement strikes me as the sort of thing that shouldn't be patentable.
It is. Almost all patented inventions are improvements of other inventions. Foundational new technologies are a rare exception.
> Can you really patent "changing the physical dimensions a bit so it fits better"?
It depends. If the claimed dimensions were new and non-obvious, then maybe. The obviousness analysis would depend on the particular facts of the case and could be quite complex. The questions would probably be ones like, “Would a person having ordinary skill in the art be able to discover the claimed dimensions without undue experimentation?” or “Do the claimed dimensions provide an unexpected result?” or “Does the prior art ‘teach away’ from selecting the claimed dimensions?” So, again, it depends.
Do they have a patent on it though? The article mainly talks about IP, copyright and trademarks. (although IP and patents are probably the same thing, IDK)
You can't enforce pending patent applicaition, only an issued patent. Also, as OP notes in the article, actually trying to enforce an issued patent in court is time consuming and expensive. It's also difficult if the copycat is based outside the US. They could just close their doors and open up the next day under another name.
You are replying to OP who wrote the article. I might have missed it but I don’t think they described any ongoing legal action against this particular copycat.
@molsonhart. I believe it from your (apparently) successful ip protection biz. :-) I think the disconnect is that I'm a patent guy, and your patent advice seems confused/incomplete/misleading. But this makes sense because your primary protection tools for attacking direct copycats would likely be TM and CR, not utility patents.
Lego found itself increasingly unable to compete on quality as its competitors became good enough so Lego pivoted instead into building a defensible moat around licensed IP. Anyone can create a "Wizards and Warriors Brick Set" but only Lego can create the "Harry Potter Hogwarts Lego Set".
It pulled them out of a rut as well; if they hadn't done the IP's, the multi-media projects (like Ninjago, Nexo Knights, etc), the collector's items etc, the competitors would likely have taken up a lot of their market space once their patents expired.
That said, lego has (IIRC) always had really good quality and precision.
That would be like saying "How hard can it be to type a program into a computer?". Statistical process control, polymer science, release agent chemistry, die metallurgy / thermal / fluid / mechanical design, etc are large and deep fields.
There's probably a better video, but here's the official one about how Lego are made.
Actually, the video suggests that the complicated part is not the baking process itself, but the handling of thousands of blocks of different types and colors.
The logistics are obviously challenging too. But their process is a trade secret, so of course the video glosses over it. Having thousands of block types also means solving the challenges I listed thousands of times.
It seems obvious that the real question that was being asked was "How hard can it be to bake a piece of plastic into shape [given the current state of the plastics industry and technology in general]?" and the answer to that question is "not difficult at all."
If you consider everything that goes into setting up an email filter in your mail app, starting with how transistors work but also including ocean cables and the liquid crystals of your display, well, sure, it's crazy how much is needed just to drop a couple of emails into the right folders... but outside of a science documentary, that's not really what people have in mind when they ask whether something is difficult.
It seems obvious that the real question that was being asked was "How hard can it be to type some computer words to make a program [given the current state of the software industry and technology in general]?" and the answer to that question is "not difficult at all."
Sure, you're not reinventing computer science. But a lot more work goes into making and maintaining a product than setting up an email filter.
The product is conceptually simple, but nailing the press fit on every block has got to require tight quality control- which is something fly-by-night knockoffs have never been known for.
The problem is the same as in lots of mechanical engineering designs - accumulated tolerance.
Imagine building a wall that is 100 blocks long with lego bricks. In order to fit well, the length of the first row has to be close to the length of the second row (etc.). Otherwise you will have the feeling of forcing it into place (if it's even possible).
That length difference is the accumulation of the error on each of the 100 bricks in a row so to get a good fit each brick needs to be made incredibly precisely. The required tolerance is approximately 1 micron.
Injection moulding is a surprisingly imprecise art (if you're not careful), so making them repeatably to that tolerance at high volume and low cost is a difficult skill. I can't find the reference now, but Lego has developed the skill to the extent that in the past they have been asked to advise defence companies about precision manufacture.
I recently got some Mega Construx for my kid, as they have the license to make Pokemon characters. One of the Pokeballs that came in the set has visibly deformed pegs on the top, making it impossible to use as displayed in the instructions. Luckily it's not a big deal to be able to stack things on top of the Pokeball so I didn't bother to return it for that.
There are plenty of clones. MegaBlocks has been the most visible for a long time. I believe Lego owns the exact dimensions and ratios of their bricks.
I recently got into NanoBlocks, which are about 1/4 the scale and different dimensions. Ease of storage and display due to tiny size is a big differentiator
Its not hard, it just costs money. Lego is the default option and the only reason you would pick another brand is if it was cheaper and to be cheaper they have to cut corners since Lego isn't massively ripping people off.
I agree with you - interlocking discs have been around 50+ years as toys, and the racquet game involving feathers is pretty much a basic badminton shuttle cock (older readers will remember they were originally made of feathers before plastic became common!).
While legally you might be able to get away with reinventing old ideas and copyrighting them, it doesn't sit morally well with me!
I can raise it to 70 years, with a toy from the 1950s, "Dis Kit".
I had a mid-20th-century version as a child, which I think was originally my mum's toy when she was a child. They did have a tendency to fall apart — they were probably cut from a sheet rather than injection moulded. The small improvement to make them "click" together seems fine, but it's a bit rich to then rant about others selling similar toys.
I was expecting IP concerns, but that the moment you put something out, or patent it, entrenched companies will immediately sue you to find out everything about your process and copy it, even if they don't have anything similar
The first thing I notice is their Brain Flakes (TM) looks exactly like something I played with at school as a kid some 25-30 years ago (albeit the pieces were a little larger)
Deelie Bobbers by Parker Brothers [0]. They're smaller, 1" but there's no question that it's essentially the same thing. There's a patents US2984935A [1] and US3177611A [2] from 1959 and 62.
So I suppose the question is, how can you make money as a distributor of an over 50 year old product?
The article seems to suggest that they created this toy and that patent protection is an option, which seems at very least disingenuous.
Copying a 20 year old product may explain why Brain Flakes are supposedly popular and why so many companies were comfortable with cloning the product, which makes it seem even more disingenuous.
The only legitimate gripe that I see are a few other companies ripping off the marketing materials. Even so, the example of Brain Flakes vs. Creative Flakes is, IMHO, the only one that I would label as creating confusion among consumers.
You can patent an improvement or tweak to a previous product. E.g., someone could patent a pencil, then someone could patent a pencil with an eraser, then someone could patent a pencil with a pyramid-shaped eraser. So they possibly are trying to patent some small inprovement to the older product.
Then the copycats can bypass your tweak patent by not implementing your tweak.
In theory. But having a patent lets you sue your competitors in a very expensive way for them, even if they win by invalidating your patent as straightforwardly as the legal system allows.
Funny how that works. I guess when the OP said you need a lawyer, it was more of a threat than friendly advice.
You cannot protect yourself from copycats, and if somebody says he can, he is a fraud.
I worked in, and around OEM consumer electronics since 2007.
A much bigger problem why you need a lawyer to run just any physical business in USA, is because of militant litigation from pretty much everybody:
1. Consumers, some time legit, some times BS, and BS litigations hurt the most. You either hire a lawyer to write "Do not try to operate the gas stove with your genitals," or you simply cannot survive with nonsensical body of law covering product liability.
Not saying that genuine screwups on your side can not be equally painful. A recall is usually the end of any non-MNC company in the industry.
2. Suppliers, and not in the way you usually expect. IP supplier-trolls at large. The moment somebody sells a single widget of yours in US, US judges believe they can apply American IP laws wherever you are in the world, and entitle trolls to your international revenue. It does not fly much anywhere in the world, but they have unlimited amount of tricks to lure you into US courtrooms.
3. Government bodies, again, some times legit, some times not. Tons of codes, and some well known vague, and contradictory regulations especially covering radio certification, and electrical safety.
It's not like they are hard to follow, but it is the authorities in charge which themselves don't know what their rules mean, and don't want to tell even if compelled to.
However, the biggest regulatory hurdle in US is much more about simply running the company as such. Militant IRS, labour related litigation, securities (just don't run a corporation in the US under any circumstance.)
4. Your own distributors. In what country a buyers of yours can not only owe you money, be overdue on the payment, and sue you for demanding them back? Yes, you know the answer. From my experience, it is extremely hard to exact payments from debtors in USA, and big co clients routinely exploit it every day.
> You cannot protect yourself from copycats, and if somebody says he can, he is a fraud.
That may be practically true in some cases (e.g., where the copier is unreachable) but it is not true in general. In fact, protecting a business investment from copycats is the entire purpose for intellectual property and actions for infringement of trademarks, copyright, and patents or for misappropriation of trade secrets.
Interesting, and while I sense that you have legitimate experience and insight, I cannot help but feel this contradicts the reality that I see:
Many startups originate in the U.S. and while many fail, some either become profitable or are acquired. Why would another entity acquire if the future burden/liability you describe truly exists?
To understand you correctly, are you saying bankers&lawyers get drawn into acquiring startups? ...More about strategic interests than direct return on investment?
Much of lemming tendencies than anything meaningful. Everybody seem to be doing this, guided by the crowd instincts, but those with the most money, and connections (which bankers, and lawyers are) seem to score them most at that.
The original has paid for the r&d, advertising and taken all the risk involved with launching a new product.
Copy doesn't have to factor any of that in and can shop around for the cheapest labour to get the copy done. As stated in the article even the supplier has started a copy.
Consumers still lose out if a product never gets created in the first place because its too much hassle to deal with copying.
As discussed in other comments, the "original" product from the author is in fact itself a copycat. Furthermore, for this product the author has mostly been using copyright and trademarks, not patents, suggesting that R&D was not their key input.
There are examples where another company copied the instructions manual with specific creations. Even if any protection for the “disc with slots” concept are invalid, there is likely some protection for the manuals. Of course all of this boils down to having enough money for lawyers to defend
> Utility patents cost around $6,000 including legal fees and drawings.
This is for the initial filing, and it won’t cover the cost of dealing with the rejections that almost every patent application receives. It’s also a serious underestimate—10k is more typical for the initial filing.
>file a provisional patent application yourself ($150) before revealing your product. That will give you 12 months to explore whether or not your product is viable. If it is, get an attorney before the 12 months expire.
Almost every single provisional application I’ve seen filed without a lawyer’s input has been close to worthless. This is a false economy.
>This is for the initial filing, and it won’t cover the cost of dealing with the rejections that almost every patent application receives. It’s also a serious underestimate—10k is more typical for the initial filing.
That's not right. That's $6,000 all in. Maybe software patents are more expensive.
>Almost every single provisional application I’ve seen filed without a lawyer’s input has been close to worthless. This is a false economy.
That's a bad sample then. A lay person can definitely file a good provisional patent application. They just need to describe the invention inside and out.
Re: Maybe $6k all in to FILE. But additional fees are needed when the patent issues, and to later maintain the patent. Also, often to negotiate with the patent office during the examination process.
Re: Provisional-- But be careful. For example, a Design patent application cannot claim priority to a provisional patent application. So the article's advice regarding filing a provisional patent application would not apply to design patent applications.
It appears form your edisonlf.com site that your skill set is predominantly around trademarks and copyrights, and not patents. Maybe focus your advice on those topics, and not so much patents? For fighting direct copycats, those (and maybe design patents) are your best bets anyway, as you apparently have successfully discovered.
NP. Yes, patenting costs for simple structures such as your BF product are on the low end of the spectrum, as compared to other product types.
Have you recieved any allowed patents for this product? I only see patent pending listed at your site. The process can sometimes take several iterations (office actions) and fees at the time of allowance are also needed.
> That's a bad sample then. A lay person can definitely file a good provisional patent application. They just need to describe the invention inside and out.
I just looked up your provisional application (which became public when your non-provisional application was published). It's half a page of text and some pictures. Is this a good example of a solid provisional application written by a layperson?
> Almost every single provisional application I’ve seen filed without a lawyer’s input has been close to worthless.
Wait, you mean they failed to establish priority?
As in, they filed the full patent with a lawyer within 12 months and then sued somebody who infringed during that 12-month period and lost because of a defect in the provisional filing?
That would be pretty surprising if you'd seen many instances of that happening.
The point of the provisional application isn't to be a patent. It's to buy you an extra 12 months of priority in which to decide if you want to hire a lawyer. Do provisional patents really fail to do this limited job on a regular basis?
The problem can occur if the provisional patent application were to be found in court not to support the "full patent" filed with a lawyer. For example, if the "full patent" includes 10 pages of explanatory text, and 10 drawings, and the provisional patent application filed by the inventor only contains 1 paragraph of explanation, and 1 drawing, aspects of the "full patent" might not be apble to claim priority to (or be suported by)the provisional application.
In the olden days before the AIA (America Invents Act) US Provisional applications provided inventors proof of invention. Back then proof of invention would establish the presumptive priority date for the whole invention. The details could be fleshed out in the subsequent filed non-provisional application.
After the AIA, the so-called first-to-file rule took effect where priority date is set based on the date you file the first application (provisional or non-provisional). But for a few exceptions, the first to file wins, first to invent does not apply anymore.
Now, US Provisional patent applications only protect the subject matter that is in the fours corners of the document. The only time we file provisional applications now, is if it there is a bar date emergency or the inventors have not had time to approve the draft non-provisional application before the bar date.
@octoberfranklin. Agreed. You are correct. The law is more nuanced. Mine was intended to be a short example for a layperson. I thought a nuanced 10,000 word response might be overkill in this forum. :-)
My intention was to point out that a short provisional patent application prepared by a non-expert in patent law may end up not providing the intended protection.
What I mean is that they didn't include enough information to provide support for the claims that eventually issued in the patent. And yes, that will cause the attempted priority claim to fail for the issued claims.
I would think there is always value in patent-application because even if it could be easily challenged in court it allows you to claim you have patent or patent pending which will help your marketing.
Correct. It can often be worth it for the marketing aspects. Or to be thought of as an innovator or thought leader. Or to provide leverage when trying to get funding.
That's what I was thinking ... to get funding. It shows you have "something" and it also shows that you are the "owner" of the idea.
I did one preliminary software patent application and I also found that it greatly helped me focus and "crystallize" what is the big idea here.
It's kind of like writing documentation but focusing on the core ideas. A patent should not only disclose the technical details of how it works but also explain why it is useful, why it is better than existing approaches.
That is a good way to evaluate the worthiness of the project. Why this, over software that already exist. A project is often useful even if it is not patentable. But writing or even thinking about writing a preliminary patent-application helps put it in context.
If your funder is even vaguely competent, they'll know that "patent pending" means extremely little. It could mean that you hired a law firm to prepare a solid patent application, but it could equally well mean that you scribbled something on a napkin, slapped a cover sheet on it, and mailed it to the patent office.
They might want to see a copy of the patent-application, which you might be willing to show them under a non-disclosure agreement.
If you want to sell an idea to an investor it is not unreasonable that they would demand to know what exactly the idea is, which is best communicated by letting them see the patent application. No?
Agreed, mostly. For some investors, it's just a check box item, and they won't look into it any more. But they are competent. It's just not a high priority for them.
Not limited to physical products. It's common sense to have a lawer if you do business. There is all kind of nasty stuff that will harm you; and you yourself might be even the first one on that list. A laywer should also be around check how you not break any law yourself.
You might unwillingly break someones IP yourself, or go against some easy to find trademark or patent. Or your businees might be based on some idea which is actually illegal in some aspect.
And if your business is running, you need someone to take care of customer-complains, copycats, piracy, problems with employees and partnered companies... There is so much that can go wrong, so many toxic people who wanna milk you for a cheap dollar. It's like the real world-version of anti-malware-software. If you don';t know exactly what you are doing, it might be healthier to have some good protection.
IIRC, snowboards are a counter-example to this article. The design was never patented, and the original company did pretty well on the principle that 'a rising tide floats all boats'.
Edit. The article makes me think of the different (extreme) failure modes of companies run by experts in different sub-departments. An accountant might run the company into the ground with bean-counting, a marketer might sell! sell! sell! what they've got without regard for quality, an engineer might forget to find customers, and apparently a lawyer might protect their idea so far as to prevent anyone else from helping popularize the idea. Everyone thinks their own tool is perfect for all the nails...
This is a quibble, but you might find it useful. The writer of this otherwise well-written article writes "i.e." where they should have written "e.g.". i.e. means "that is". e.g. means "for example". I have no idea why people keep getting this wrong.
> I have no idea why people keep getting this wrong.
Because we stopped teaching Latin?
My fav is et cetera ("and so on") where et is of course "and" and has its own symbol "&" (which, if you look closely, is clearly made of an "E" and a "t") and so you can abbreviate "etc." as "&c."
Feels like this is where there’s some value in a physical retailer like Toys R Us as distribution. They wouldn’t stock both Brain Flakes and Picasso Tiles. Since Brain Flakes would have come to them first and with the right IP, they’d put them on the shelf. There’s some sort of in built filter with physical stores because it’d be awkward to show the exact same product under different brands, it may even reflect poorly on the retailer or store. Whereas on Amazon, brand value completely subsides and I’d assume the main competing factors are price and search rank.
On the other hand, supermarkets do that on a regular basis with food. Brand product and inhouse alternative. Sometimes it goes as far as the brand producer providing both products, with the exact same ingredients and the supermarket puts them right next to each other. Only difference: Packaging and price.
Hacker News tends to hate IP but I thought the article was very informative, really appreciate the costs breakdown. Maybe worth mentioning the legal up side company but I don't think it changes the advice.
I am thinking of starting a hardware product based company, and the thing that worries me the most is liability since the US is so litigious
If your product is so easily copied, unfortunately it will be copied. It isn't a good thing but that's the way it is! I think toys are probably the hardest industry to avoid copycats.
To be successful you need to keep innovating and try to build moats around your product, whether that is having better quality, having a software aspect which is harder to copy, or even just having the brand name.
"If you are successful, you will be copied and the copies will take your sales. You need a way to prevent this and that is "intellectual property" or "IP". This is a catch all term for an exclusive license from the government to sell something you created."
Generally, you can't grant an exclusive license to rights that you do not own. The author's definition of "intellectual property" would appear to have the government owning exclusive rights to sell anything eligible for intellectual property protection.
Sometimes, as a condition to receiving some form of financial support from the government, you might automatically assign rights to them. Obviously not all "intellectual property" is created with governmental support.
Internet authors frequently try to explain intellectual property incorrectly, but this is one of the more intersting incorrect definitions I have seen.
Patents, trademarks and copyrights do not grant a license to sell anything. They do provide rights to sue others.
Same thing happens with everything unless you're a big company with a bunch of money to spend on IP protections.
We have this really screwed up system where if an individual creates unique product you'll have to deal with copycats before you cash the first cheque, but mega-corps can have white noise demonetized for copyright infringement on YouTube.
It strikes me that having the time/space lag from "good idea" to "available everywhere cheaply" decrease is, overall, a good thing.
But like Napster, too much of a good thing causes it's own problems, eh? (I'm kidding, napster was great and nothing better has yet replaced it.)
As time goes on this lag will reduce and the problem becomes how can I pay my bills? But that's a problem everybody (who doesn't own a robo-omni-factory) shares with you. So UBI baby. (Universal Basic Income) Star Trek. Yay.
Unpopular opinion and anecdotal but in all the companies I've started lawyers have been the single biggest waste of money. They gave me nothing that I couldn't have found by doing a Ctrl+F in the law code.
It may help that I live in a country with pretty straight-forward laws and very little bureaucracy, which doesn't seem to be the case in the US. Even the preparatory work and case-laws are easy to digest.
> If you need a lawyer and to file a lawsuit, try to get one on contingency. Contingency means that, instead of earning money by the hour, the attorney gets a portion of the money you recover. They’ll care more and your incentives will be better aligned.
Unfortunately, this is not possible in all countries. I come from Austria where this is definitely not allowed. There are probably other european countries where this is disallowed.
> Copyrights. In the physical product world, you can file a copyright for advertising copy, your packaging art, or even your e-commerce photos. They cost $65 to file with the US Copyright Office and you do not need an attorney to do it.
Since when is this a thing? Isn't copyright automatic on any kind of creative work? Like, even the text I'm writing here should be protected by default, right?
Copyright lets you file damages. But you need to prove damages amount. Registered copyright allows you to pursue statutory damages, and all you have to prove is that copying occurred.
I wonder if it’s possible for creators to successfully defend products from imitators. I’ve heard it’s rife on amazon and haven’t heard any practical solution. E.g was chatting to a very popular artist a few days ago and his only solution is to keep innovating and try to outpace the copycats.
So basically the author does not like it when someone competes with them (who does?) and runs to the government to get a monopoly on the product. Spending money and effort on suing instead of continuous innovation and improvement. What a great system.
I have a physical product company in a very heavily regulated industry and I suspect strongly that my attorney has far less to do than if I made software. I'll have to ask him, maybe I'm misunderstanding and screwing up bad
Having heavy regulations almost helps in some cases because it both discourages low level copycats and also protects you to a degree - if someone sues you can say "I followed all the compliance standards!". And hopefully you have the documents to back that up.
They released those "Brain Flakes" in 2014 and had copycats within a year. But I remember toys that look exactly like that from much longer ago. Aren't Brain Flakes the copycats here?
If you only have US IP protection, then they can make it and sell it in foreign countries. The US IP protection would be relevant once the copycat tried to import or sell into the US. But, for a small company, such enforcement can be difficult. Especially if the online marketplace does not provide any assistance.
That's the least of your problems. To fire up an assembly line for even the most trivial of products you are going to be looking at initial expenses in the range of $1M, if you are lucky. Even if it's China, in which case you will also have to know how to navigate the industry there.
The only way $1M makes sense is if you are describing the entire project cost for a fairly basic electronics product including tooling, salaries, marketing, compliance, manufacturing fixturing, etc.
What I would consider "firing up a manufacturing line" would cost maybe in the tens of thousands of dollars.
What do you want me to say? I can't tell you how much it cost because it varies by product, but to get most physical products of the ground in China costs less than $5k.
