Learn the easy steps you can take to help protect your work in the online environment

1. © 2013 Edwards Wildman Palmer LLP & Edwards Wildman Palmer UK LLP
Easy ways to protect your
innovations online
Gareth Dickson
Edwards Wildman Palmer UK LLP

2. © 2013 Edwards Wildman Palmer LLP & Edwards Wildman Palmer UK LLP
Provides high quality pro bono legal and regulatory advisory to early stage,
start-up companies in the tech and digital media sector. qLegal:
• Enriches learning: An opportunity for students to apply their legal
knowledge in a real life and practical manner;
• Enhances employability: Contributing to students’ careers and
development prospects; and
• Serves of clients needs: Reducing a potential barrier to innovation
and enterprise, by assisting tech start-ups and entrepreneurs
For more information, please visit www.qmul.ac.uk/qlegal

3. © 2013 Edwards Wildman Palmer LLP & Edwards Wildman Palmer UK LLP
qLegal: Services
Advice session
♦ Student advisers provide written legal advice to clients under supervision from qualified
lawyers (commitment per letter (including interview): approx 8 hours over 21 days).
Workshops
♦ Students provide presentations on various areas of law to start-up companies and
entrepreneurs. Presentations have input from qualified lawyers (commitment per
presentation, approx 8 hours over 60 days).
Developing toolkits
♦ Students draft factsheets on various areas of law for start-up companies and
entrepreneurs. Toookits have input from qualified lawyers and will be uploaded to the
qLegal website as an online resource (commitment per toolkit, approx 4 hours over
30 days).
Talks
♦ Professionals provide talks on various areas of law to start-up
companies and entrepreneurs.

4. © 2013 Edwards Wildman Palmer LLP & Edwards Wildman Palmer UK LLP
Contact details
Patrick Cahill
qLegal Coordinator
p.cahill@qmul.ac.uk
Ian Walden
Professor of Information and
Communications Law
i.n.walden@qmul.ac.uk

5. Preliminary Issues
♦ This is not legal advice
♦ Tweet questions: use #LDNtechQ
♦ About 40 minutes of talk, then Q&A from the floor, then drinks and
further discussion
5

6. “Easy” ways to protect innovation online
♦ What part of protecting innovation is “easy”?
♦ Key issues for:
♦ Developing your product
♦ Funding your development
♦ Marketing
♦ Enforcement / Infringement
♦ Practical tips
6

7. “Easy” ways to protect innovation online
♦ Protecting innovation is the role given to Intellectual Property law
♦ Key to using IP effectively and to avoiding getting caught out are:
♦ knowing the rules
♦ having a plan
♦ “Easy” does not mean once and for all
♦ “Easy” does not mean free
♦ Protection made “easy” through planning and preparation
7

8. IP: Why is it so important?
8
Protects the end product of your innovation and
entrepreneurialism
Gives you legal rights to stop others from doing any of the
following without your permission
Copying you
Exploiting what
you have
created
Pretending to
be you
LEVERAGE!

9. IP Rights: What are they?
9
INTELLECTUAL
PROPERTY
Copyright
Patents
Trade marks
(x2)
Semi-
conductor
topography
rights
Know-
how
Trade
secrets
Designs Databases
(x2)

10. IP Rights: How do they arise?
10
INTELLECTUAL
PROPERTY
Automatic
Automatic
upon
creation
Registration
and
renewal
Registered
AND
Unregistered
rights
Designs
Trade
secrets
Know-
how
Semi-
conductor
topography
rights

11. IP Rights: What do they protect?
11
INTELLECTUAL
PROPERTY
Literary
dramatic
musical
artistic works
sound
recordings
films
Product or
process
New
Inventive
Industrial
Not excluded
Signs
capable of
distinguishing
goods and
services
Semi-
conductor
topography
rights
Know-
how
Trade
secrets
Designs
Works, data
arranged
methodically
and
individually
accessible

12. IP Rights: How long can they last?
12
INTELLECTUAL
PROPERTY
Life plus 70
years / 15
years
Life
plus 70
years
20
years For
ever
Designs
Trade
secrets
Know-
how
Semi-
conductor
topography
rights

13. Using the Internet for development
13
Copyright and Patents
Ownership Evidence Ownership
(Pt II)
Employee Contractor
Crowdsourcing Who are you dealing with?

14. Using the Internet for fundraising
14
Raising Finance
Ownership Novelty and
confidentiality
Promotion of
illegal
activities
What do the
terms and
conditions say?
Pitch without
losing novelty
or
confidentiality
Where is your
funding coming
from?

15. Marketing
15
Marketing your
goods and
services online
Distinctive
name
Sponsored
ads
Meta tags
Comparative
advertising

16. Marketing
16
Stand out not
only where you
are based, but
also online
Distinctive
name
Sponsored
ads
Meta tags
Comparative
advertising

17. Marketing
17
Can use third
party marks to
trigger your ad so
long as not likely
to confuse
Distinctive
name
Sponsored
ads
Meta tags
Comparative
advertising

18. Marketing
18
Rules on
advertising can
extend to meta
tag use on
websites
Distinctive
name
Sponsored
ads
Meta tags
Comparative
advertising

19. Marketing
19
Objective
comparison of
material, relevant,
verifiable,
representative
features
Distinctive
name
Sponsored
ads
Meta tags
Comparative
advertising

20. Infringements
20
Bundles of “exclusive” rights
Copyright Patents Trade marks
Reproduce
Databases
MakeCopy Copy Use in trade
Perform
Issue /
communicate
Distribute
Dispose
Use
Import
Extract
Re-utilise
Misrepresent

21. Infringements
21
Options
Takedown
Reproduce
Formal cease and desist letter
Subsistence
Standard form
Ownership
Infringement
Specificity
Instruct lawyers, or do it yourself?
UDRP
DRS, URS
<.com>
<.uk>
<.newgtld>

22. Other issues
22
Jurisdiction
Streisand
effect
Social
media is
powerful
ADR!
Trolls
Permitted
acts

23. Top tips: Subsistence
1. Don’t destroy novelty by sharing your work
2. Choose a trade mark that distinguishes your goods and services in
the online as well as the offline marketplace
3. Register your brand or logo as a trade mark and on social media
4. Keep records of development so that you can identify:
♦ Who made it?
♦ What was their contribution, and in what capacity?
♦ Where were they when they made their contribution?
♦ When did they make their contribution?
♦ How did you decide on who owns what?
23

24. Top tips: Ownership
1. Be clear from the start about who will own your end product’s IP
2. Put agreements in writing, signed and dated by both parties
3. Use © symbol, with your name and the year of creation, on your
works
4. Use ® (only) on your registered trade marks
5. Use ™ on your unregistered trade marks
6. DRM – ensure it is proportionate
24

25. Top tips: Infringement
1. Continuously monitor social media and websites
♦ Third party services
♦ Search engines: similarity searches; email alerts
♦ Disable hotlinking
2. Seed database and copyright works with tell-tale identifiers
3. Decide which unauthorised acts you will pursue and which you will
tolerate or even embrace
4. Be specific in your complaints: make it easy to agree with your POV
5. Paywalls? Low-res images?
25

26. Top tips: General
1. Keep good records, easily accessible for when you need them
2. Set a realistic budget: don’t let costs OR infringements get out of hand
3. Keep up-to-date with the law: sign up to mailing lists, attend legal
workshops, follow relevant Twitter accounts. But be judicious!
4. Who will do your legal work? Self? In-house lawyers? Undisclosed
externals? Disclosed externals?
5. Anticipate social media effect on PR
26

27. Scenarios
1. James has a great idea for a product but lacks funding. He decides to post to
a VC mailing list if anyone would think about investing. What should he be
thinking about when composing his email to the list?
2. Alex and Sam both work in the graphics design industry and decide to write a
short children’s animation. What should they be thinking about before
starting?
3. Caroline has read a lot of negative press about litigation involving keyword
advertising, so instead of purchasing keywords, uses a competitor’s trade
mark in the HTML of her site so that it shows up in the natural search results.
Is Caroline allowed to do that?
4. Max’s daily email alert contains evidence that someone is copying-and-
pasting quotes from one of Max’s blog onto Tumblr. Max knows from
Edwards Wildman’s Client Advisories that copyright may have been
infringed. What can Max do?
27

28. Questions?
28
Gareth Dickson
Edwards Wildman
http://www.linkedin.com/in/GarethDickson
@GarethDickson