By Brad Trew

Society has taught itself how to protect real property from threats; our cars, homes and families.  It’s become easy to name the long list of options to protect things: alarm systems, brighter lighting, police patrols, and bigger locks.

Ideas are not so easily protected because an idea stolen is not only difficult to detect but can be just as devastating when lost.  Such thefts of intellectual property are sometimes intentional, sometimes inadvertent.  In either case, it can impact your bottom line and your brand image, particularly if sub-standard products are being presented as your own.  Another common method is to piggyback on your company’s success with a similar sounding or looking product.

Ideas can take on many forms as well as the types of infractions that jeopardize them:

• copyright infringement
• trademark spoofing
• brand protection
• intellectual property
• research and development
• counterfeit clothing, handbags, etc.
• counterfeit movies and DVDs

The recent closure of MegaUpload.com has marked a pronounced change in the way the internet will operate in the future.  MegaUpload is considered to be the 13^th most visited website on the internet and was just one of the top three file sharing companies online making up 21 billion visits per year.  Much of the content on MegaUpload was deemed to be contraband music, movies and electronic books with an estimated $500 million being taken out of the pockets of the rightful owners.

Another area of rampant disregard for brand ownership is counterfeit clothing and DVDs.  The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development reported that the international trade of counterfeit and pirated goods in 2007 amounted to around $250 billion.

Brand identity is your company’s ethics, ideas, services and personality.  Not only does it serve to identify your place in the market, it also represents a consumer’s emotions, confidence, values and prejudices about your company or product.

The types of investigative services fall under a wide variety of methods including covert surveillance to gather on-site evidence, pretense phone calls, in-depth online inquiries and computer forensic analysis.

To be certain that you aren’t inadvertently infringing on another’s idea, companies must do their own due diligence.  This due diligence can consist of searches of registered company names, patent searches or registration, trademark searches, design of logos to ensure they are not currently in use in some form, consumer focus groups and searches for the online presence of a particular product, service or design.

Every scenario is different so there isn’t a magic bullet approach in solving the ownership of an idea that can’t necessarily be held, felt, touched or heard.  Despite this, ownership is still a very real and tangible thing that must be proven and protected at all costs.

Some additional reading:

Megaupload Limited,^[1] better known for its closed websites including the top-15 file hosting service megaupload.com,^[1] is an online Hong Kong–based company established in 2005 that ran a number of online services related to file storage and viewing. The domain names were seized and the sites shut down by the U.S. Justice Department on 19 January 2012, following their indictment and arrests of the owners for allegedly operating as an organization dedicated to copyright infringement.^[5] HK$330 million-worth assets were frozen by the Customs and Excise Department of Hong Kong.^[6]

The shutdown led to denial-of-service attacks on a range of websites belonging to the U.S. government and copyright organisations.^[7][8] The case has not yet been heard at trial.  Read more…

Apple Sued for Trademark Infringement by VOIP Company iCloud Communications
By Klint Finley

Apple has had its share of trademark disputes in recent years, such as Cisco’s trademark of the iPhone trademark and Fujitsu’s ownership of “iPad.” Now iCloud Communications is suing Apple over the iCloud trademark, according to The Next Web.

iCloud Communications is based in Arizona and filed the suit in the U.S. District Court there. The company was founded in 2005 offers a variety of VOIP, SIP, PBX and conferencing services.

The suit, made available on Scribd by The Next Web’s Brad McCarty, includes a history of Apple’s trademark suits going back to the company’s beginnings, when it was sued by the Beatles’ record company Apple Corp. From the suit:

As was the case of the “iPhone” and “iAd” marks, Apple discreetly applied for a foreign trademark registration for ICLOUD months prior to the launch announcement on June 6, 2011 (Apple applied initially in Australia for iPhone, Canada for iAd and Jamaica for iCloud). That foreign ICLOUD application appears to now form the basis for the various iCloud applications for which Apple filed in the United States on June 1, 2011. Apparently, Apple is attempting to use a foreign jurisdiction’s laws to gain priority for its U.S. registrations while circumventing the notice and publication requirements for trademark applications filed here in the United States with respect to “intent-to-use” applications Read more…