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Written by : Ruthanne Sperdute |
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in this video I'll show you how you can patent and trademark searches so you don't get yourself in trouble by getting involved with patented or trademark products but as a disclaimer I want to make it clear that I'm not a professional I'm just sharing with you what I do and this is not professional advice if you need advice consult a professional but first my name is Crescent and this is our first time meeting welcome to my channel my passion is sharing tips and strategies on how you can create a successful Amazon FBA private label business so if you enjoyed videos like this or especially if you've been around my channel consider subscribing and hit that like button or share this video with a friend to help spread the word alright let's get started so first why is it important to make sure to check if a product is patented or trademarked well if a product is patented or trademarked the owner of the intellectual property has rights to it and no one else is legally allowed to sell the product or use the name or logo without permission so if you violate their intellectual property rights at best Amazon will shut down your listing and you'll lose your investment in the product and not worst they'll get sued and you can lose a lot more so in my opinion you want to avoid patented and trademark products at all costs now there are three types of patents but really only to apply to selling on Amazon that's the utility patent and the design patent if you want to know more in-depth details about the differences I have a video on it here basically a utility patent protects the function of a product whereas a design patent protects the physical appearance of the product for example a utility patent on a coffee maker will protect its unique method of brewing the coffee whereas a design patent protects how it looks the actual shape and placement of buttons and other features for example but not the functionality of how it brews the coffee patents can take a few years to get granted and are generally good for twenty years one thing I want to make clear is that violating someone's IP is a serious issue the excuse of not knowing or there's other people selling it or my supplier told me it's not aren't valid excuses the intellectual property owner does not have to disclose that there's a patent or trademark on the product in their listings and Amazon itself doesn't enforce intellectual property rights it's up to the patent owner to police and enforce their own intellectual property rights so just because you see other listings selling the product doesn't mean it's not patented the other listings could be legally licensed to resellers or they could be illegally selling counterfeit products and they simply haven't been caught yet or the patent owner hasn't made a claim against them yet it's your sole responsibility to make sure you're not violating anyone's intellectual property now you can do a patent search on the US patents and Trademark website at uspto.gov or on Google patents at patent school accom I prefer Google patents myself as it's easier to use you want to do a search for the keywords that best describe the product or its function try different searches since what you call the product might not be how other people refer to it or how the patent owner registered it under you can also try just googling the keywords with the word patent after it and see what comes up just because you don't find anything doesn't mean it's not patented it could be patented under a different term or name that's why it's important to hire professional if you really want to pursue a potential product now trademarks are different than patents a trademark protects a name or logo such as your business name logo or a product line for example brand names like Sony Nike Batman or Lego the thing with trademarks is that you don't actually have to register it to have legal protection common law takes effect the moment anyone starts using the brand name or logo again as with patents Amazon doesn't enforce this the intellectual property owner has to enforce their legal rights so you cannot use their brand name or logos and your listing and if you do you might get away with it for a while but once the legal owner notices or decides to take action Amazon will shut down your listing if the brand name or logo an obvious like Nike or Apple then you can do a trademark search on uspto.gov you also need to be aware to avoid brand names that have become synonymous with the type of product like velcro or Kleenex Lego or Xerox those are trademarked brand names that people now use in common language to describe similar products you can't use velcro in your listing you can use hook-and-loop you can't use Lego but you can use building blocks for example lastly copyright it protects works of art like literature lyrics or photos basically the rule of thumb here is if you didn't take the photo or write the text yourself don't use it even if you found it on Google or your supplier gave you the photos they could have easily got them off Google too and you can get your listing shut down or sued by using someone else's photos or text so take your own photos and write your own product descriptions all right so let's show you a product that's patented so I found this one during my product research and it's a training mask and the numbers look really good but had I not gone the extra step to make sure that it's not patented I could have got him out of trouble had I put money into it and actually purchased product from a supplier so this is a mask that restricts your air flow while you're doing exercise right and if we go over to Google patents and type in training mask you can see the very first result here high-performance ventilatory training mask it says a wearable training mask providing very dindt elation resistance right and if you look at the photos it looks just like the product on Amazon ok and if we go over here and take a look in 2012 the application was submitted and it was granted in 2015 ok and you can see that it expires in 2032 ok so this is an example of a patented product and that's that's how easy it was to find out if that was patented or not now let me show you a example of a patent that's pending so another product is the full face snorkel mask and a lot of people were getting into this product too it's saturated it and people weren't getting their listing shut down just yet because it's a pending patent okay so and that means at any time they could be approved and then they would and then the owner could come after you and have your listing shut down okay and take legal action against you so that's why it's too much of a risk if there's a patent or if there's a patent that's pending alright so again let's go back to Google patents and let's type in full face snorkel mask and believe if we go right here look at the photo this is the exact product right here right look at that exactly the same product okay and then if we come down here you can see it was applied in 2016 and 2018 right but doesn't say granted or active status so this is most likely a patent that's pending so that m
Thanks for your comment Huey Tudruj, have a nice day.
- Ruthanne Sperdute, Staff Member
all right what is going on guys welcome back to my channel hope you guys are having an awesome day today today I actually thought of covering with you guys a little bit about intellectual property for rights owners especially for those you guys that are in your product research phase it's very crucial that you guys actually do your research and do your due diligence and make sure that the products that you guys are actually looking to go into our trademarked aren't patented and most definitely that you guys aren't going to be using their images or let's say their music and whatnot which is referred to as copyright so I'm gonna be going into a lot of the legal stuff out here just keep in mind that the following information in this presentation does not contain legal advice and if you guys are actually looking to let's say trademark your product or patent your product very important that you guys do consult a lawyer or subject matter expert if you do have any specific questions about your or others IP rights so I'm just gonna give you guys a brief explanation here but definitely a lot of things to keep in mind when you are doing your product research so let's actually go ahead and get into it and I hope you guys do enjoy this tutorial questions concerns guys you know that I'm always in the comments section down below so feel free to address your opinions or whatever's on your mind and I'll be more than happy to actually connect with you guys at the end of the video so without further ado let's actually go ahead and get into it so first things first what is a trademark so you guys have probably been seeing a lot of brand names online on the internet whenever you are browsing have the TM at the end of their brand name and essentially this is trademark and essentially a trademark is a word symbol or design for example a logo that a company uses to identify its own products or services and distinguishes them from other brands right so for example with Nike and Adidas they're all trademark right so essentially no one can actually go ahead and have the check mark or the swoosh as their logo for their company considering Nike actually trademarked that logo in that specific design so essentially that's what a trademark is and essentially the purpose for the trademark law is that it does allow companies to protect the investment their asset by preventing other companies from misusing their brand so this actually prevents counterfeit products for example or someone that's trying to imitate a product of some sort or someone that is essentially trying to imitate a brand right also having a trademark is very good as an asset especially if you are looking to later off sell your business right for example Nike considering they have the trademark they have that strong brand reputation they can actually go ahead and sell that trademark that brand for billions of dollars so essentially that's the purpose for the trademark law and to essentially just be protected in which no one else is gonna be using your design or your brand name now why are they so effective so essentially trademarks make it easy for customers to find you and again it captures a customer attention makes your business and product service to stand out from the competition and it gives you that brand reputation so again going back to the Nike example it's known across the world has that strong reputation and essentially let's say you are in the store looking at buy shoes that swoosh is gonna capture your eye and considering you guys probably know how reliable Nike is you're gonna go ahead and make that purchase so this is essentially why trademarks are effective and why you're gonna be required to eventually have one as well as you guys are growing your business so as a trademark owner essentially your company is going to be protecting their trademark by registering it in a country specific trademark office such as the USPTO office so that's actually known as the United States Patent and Trademark Office and if you are looking at actually trademark around the world let's say you're in Canada US or Europe I do have the links on here so for example with Canada this actually the main website you can actually go ahead click on trademark search let's go ahead access the database here so this is a Canadian trademarks database and let's say right now we were to go in the fitness niche and we were to want to have let's say a fitness brand name and let's say right now we're gonna come up with fitness family or let's go with fit family so let's go ahead and click on search and right now we're actually seeing that there is a trademark right here let's go ahead and click on this seam our services so essentially it seems that fit fam Inc is a corporation in Alliston Ontario and we have the address here as well if you are looking for example to trademark in the United States we can go on here under trademarks searching trademarks so in Canada or wouldn't be able to actually trademark this name considering there's already a corporation under that name but let's go ahead and search in the United States fit fam submit query and right now we're seeing fit fam and why it's live v fam over here is dead we have FF v M which is active this one is not more active and this one's dead as well so unless someone's actually going through the process of filing for the trademark as we speak then you guys aren't going to be able to actually use fit fam for your own trademark also keep in mind that to actually trademark your product or your brand it's going to take a very long process could take up to two years so this is very important to keep in mind in fact I'm actually going through the process as we speak and again it's a very long process and there's a lot of documentation involved which is why I do recommend you guys actually reach out to a lawyer or a subject matter expert now let's actually go back and also there is a European Union intellectual property office which is the website right here and same idea you could go under let's say apply online let's see and you can apply for your mark right here and it's gonna give you all the instructions on how to do so just keep in mind if you are let's say selling in the United States you definitely want to get trademarked in the US if you are selling in Canada you're gonna have to get that trademark in Canada as well but don't worry about this just yet considering you guys need to actually have social proof and a proof of concept to actually see whether or not your product is selling there's no point of actually going through this entire process if the product that you guys aren't going into isn't gonna be selling and essentially all that time invested is just gonna go down the drain especially the money they did invest into hiring an attorney and filing all the documentation right and we're seeing right now apply for a European Union trademark online for 850 euros so that's roughly I would say maybe 1100 USD which is close to let's say 1300 Canadian dollars so that's a lot right which is why you guys definitely wanna make sure that you guys are following everything
Thanks stillegt your participation is very much appreciated
- Ruthanne Sperdute
About the author
I've studied primatology at Georgia State University in Atlanta and I am an expert in actuarial science. I usually feel hot. My previous job was compensation specialist I held this position for 3 years, I love talking about martial arts and sand art. Huge fan of Nelson Mandela I practice scuba diving and collect radio premiums.
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