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Patents & Trademarks

Patents

Before there were patents and trademarks there were ‘trade secrets’. North American economists believe that one of the reasons that America is as economically powerful as it is, lies in its robust patents, copyrights and trademarks laws and regulations. These, while protecting the inventor, encourage competition and the improvement of old ideas with new additions.

At the time America was developing measures to boost its economy by protecting inventors and encouraging competition the idea of an inventor showing his hand via patenting in Europe would meant his creative and economical death. 

An excellent case is given by Professor Petra Moser of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Sloan School of Management.

She tells the story of French inventor, Hippolyte Mege-Mouriez who in 1869 patented his invention of margarine. He, thinking that he was protected by the patent, showed his invention to a couple of Danes. The Danes improved on the idea, kept these (improvements) secrets, made a fortune from the idea. Mege-Mouriez died penniless.

There is a moral to the story: In countries without robust patenting laws in place and the legal system to evoke those laws it is best for an inventor to get claim patents for the invention in countries that do. Meanwhile at home, keep the info away from country men and women- especially those with the means to develop and capitalize on those ideas. For more on the inventor's list of do's and don'ts.

Trademark

In ancient days a family’s coat-of-arms was their ‘trademark’.  Today a company’s trademark is a word, phrase, slogan, design, symbol, emblem and or logo.

When properly advertised, marketed and promoted a trademark becomes branded into the buying-public’s consciousness.

Every child in North America and many in other countries around the world recognize the ‘Golden Arch’ and ‘Ronald Macdonald’. This sort of recognition means that for many children there is only one place to eat at. The benefit of such branding of this trademark is measured in a-billion-dollar revenue annually for its franchisees. (Have you ever heard of a McDonald franchise that failed?)

Such revenue must, in all areas, be protected. Business owners spend thousands yearly to protect their trademarks. Imagine if the ‘Golden Arch’ could be copied and used by pirate entrepreneurs? This would not be good for its branding image because the standard and expected fare that McDonalds patrons, the world over have come to expect, would not be constant. And people react more favorably to constancy than to change.

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