Protecting Intellectual Properties

In the words of Richard Branson, “Business opportunities are like buses, there’s always another one coming.” And since there is no shortage of new ideas coming out of the woodwork it is quite necessary to have the proper channels set in place to protect what’s yours. The four methods for protecting your intellectual properties include trade secrets, copyright, trademark, and patents. My idea is nothing new and there’s no actual secret ingredient to making it work so there’s no trade secret involved. I guess the secret sauce in the case of my business would be the computer code involved but that oversteps the bounds of a trade secret and sounds more like copyright. That method as well as the other two methods may very well be viable in achieving their intended use.

I can use trademarking to protect an image that I use to identify the company logo. I can also use copyright to protect the computer code involved in the creation of the app service part of my business plan or the code for transferring computer blue prints to personal contractors that are partnered with my business. Patents on the other hand, may generally be the first option that comes to mind when talking about intellectual property, but the idea behind my business isn’t especially innovative when compared to Uber, DoorDash, or any other type of app job service. One the other hand, the method in which I use my app business is quite different from how other businesses use theirs so it may be possible. I am after all crowd sourcing the manufacturing of computer parts through the use of 3D printers.