Intellectual Property Rights in Crowdfunding
Crowdfunding as we have been highlighting, is the next level of social networking and is a great way of raising funds from people online. Though crowdfunding has gained prominence over the last 2-3 years and globally thousands of projects have been crowd funded, still the basic rules of law apply to it. Artists, startups and online creators using this new platform are governed by Intellectual Property principles.
One might be wondering why Funduzz.com has been focusing so much on Intellectual Property (IP). This is because Funduzz.com team believes that every idea is precious and the creator of it should have the protection so that others cannot copy the same. Intellectual Property (IP) refers to the creations of the mind; and most commonly include ideas or inventions, literary and artistic works, symbols that identify your brand, names, logos and/or competitive business ideas or information. Under the broad purview of Intellectual Property, there are generally four categories that govern the use of Intellectual Property:
- Trademarks
- Patents
- Copyrights
- Trade Secrets
Though in India Intellectual Property is still not one of the top things that comes to any creative persons mind when he puts his idea online, but with increasing awareness about the need for protecting your idea, IP would be a game changer. Before making a project campaign or disclosing your concept to an online crowdfunding community to raise money, these four categories of protection and the potential resulting consequences should be thoroughly examined. Let’s take a deeper look at these four categories.
TRADEMARK
A Trademark is a word or symbol that acts as a source identifier for goods or services. The trademark is the brand of your product or service. A registered trademark provides the owner the exclusive use of the brand in the jurisdiction that it is registered in. When pitching your idea or concept on a crowdfunding site you should seek to first secure the rights to the brand through a trademark registration so as to preclude another from using or “hijacking” your unique brand identifier. If you would like to be the exclusive owner of the name you should also register the domain name and any common variations of the name with an online domain registry.
PATENT
Patent rights can also be put at risk when pitching investors. A Patent is a legal right granted by the government to exclude others from making, using, or selling the invention. When pitching your idea or concept online to secure funding, such as through a crowdfunding website, you may make certain disclosures that trigger strict patent filing deadlines. A disclosure of an idea or invention may also trigger a patent infringement lawsuit if a patent holder deems the invention protected under his or her prior filed patent.
COPYRIGHT
Copyright applies to virtually all content found online. A copyright is a work of original authorship fixed in a tangible medium of expression – in other words: pictures, music, news articles, text, graphics, as well as a website’s layout, design and backend source code. A copyright does not protect the idea but rather how it is expressed. A copyright is generated upon the work’s creation. If you have created a website or are building a software application in conjunction with your crowdfunding project, that website or code may not be copied in whole or in part and used without your permission.
TRADE SECRET
A Trade Secret is information that has value, is not generally known and is subject to efforts to maintain its secrecy. Common Trade Secrets are formulas, recipes, marketing plans, insider pricing information and/or customer lists. When seeking funding for your project through a crowdfunding site you should be careful of how much, if any, of this information should be disclosed. If this type of information becomes generally available through an open disclosure its protected status as a Trade Secret is likely to be forfeited. Thereby, making the information available for anyone to use and commercialize.
So concluding we would say, it’s your idea and you need to protect it from the prying eyes of millions of online users. Remember whenever you put your content online, in addition to your fans, there are also the competitors who are looking at your creation.
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