How to get a design trademark
Does Your Print On Demand DESIGN Need Trademarks & Copyrights??
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picture this right you start a new print
on demand store
you make a whole bunch of designs you
spend time making the logo
building your brand and then you're
online and you see
somebody ripping off your designs or
ripping off your logo or even using your
brand name they're stealing your idea
what do you do and how can you protect
yourself in the first place from having
that
actually happen well in this video today
we're going to be discussing what you
can actually do
if somebody does that to you and how you
can protect yourself
before that even happens we'll jump
right into it right after this
[Music]
all right guys welcome back to the
channel you are now entering a
guru free zone my name is joe robert
founder of podninjas.com
i make youtube videos here on my channel
to give you actionable advice to start
grow or scale a print on the man
business on shopify and if you think i'm
doing a good job with my
content as a small youtuber i would ask
you to subscribe to the channel and also
like the video
really helps my channel to grow and if
you're new to print on demand and you
want some extra help please check out
our facebook group the link is down in
the description
we have over 20 000 print-on-demand
store owners inside of it and we'd love
to welcome you there next today we're
going to be talking about copyrights and
trademarks
what they are how to get them why you
should get them or even if you should
consider getting them and at the end of
today's video
i am going to give you my opinion on the
subject and what you should be doing
as either a beginner to print on demand
or someone who has been doing this for a
while before we go any further i want to
sort of break down what these two things
actually are so that way you guys can
understand what we are going to be
referencing throughout the rest of the
video as you can see here a copyright
refers to the legal right of the owner
of intellectual property in simpler
terms copyright is the right
to copy this means that the original
creators of products and anyone they
give authorization to
are the only ones that have the right to
reproduce the work to understand it
further i want you to check this out
this says when it comes to intellectual
property how to copyright something is
one of the most contested issues the
arguments aren't because it's hard to
cooperate something it's actually
because it's so easy
technically you own the copyright to
your work as soon as you create it
it doesn't even have to be published to
be protected okay freeze before we go
any further now i want to talk about
what a trademark actually
is because it's different than a
copyright a trademark as you see
is a symbol word or words that are
legally registered or established by use
as representing a company or
product it is an easily recognizable
symbol phrase or word that denotes a
specific product it legally
differentiates a product or service from
all other
of its kind and recognizes the source
company's ownership
of the brand and how you get one differs
a little bit from a copyright as you saw
earlier
see here it says to register a trademark
go to the u.s patent and trademark
office's website and there you can file
yourself a trademark so this means that
essentially a trademark typically
protects brand names and logos used on
goods and services in a copyright
protects an original
artistic or literary work to understand
this in more simpler terms a trademark
is going to protect
your brand's logo or your brand's name
and a copyright protects your original
artistic works or
your print-on-demand designs based on
what we've read so far a trademark must
actually be
filed with the government and a
copyright is created essentially as soon
as you create the design
as soon as you put it on your store and
you have it made by someone or you make
it yourself it is yours you own the
copyright to it because you created it
take this for
example okay take the brand disney right
hopefully by now you've heard of the
company disney but when they make a
movie
okay their brand name of disney and
their logo is what they're actually
filing to have protected with a
trademark you can look up their
trademark they own it however when it
comes to
a movie that they are producing they are
not taking the time to go through and
file trademarks for every character's
name
or something that's written in a book or
even a song that appears in a movie they
simply
own a natural copyright to it because it
is something that they created
and published in a movie or a book or
something like that the same is true for
your print-on-demand store the only
thing that you would actually be
trademarking is your logo or
your brand name when you create a design
you own the copyright to it
automatically all right i want to do a
little bit of story time here i run a
program called the print on demand
challenge i'm telling you about this
because i'm currently in the process of
trying to trademark
the words print-on-demand challenge i
want to be the only person that can
legally run a course called the print on
man challenge
and here's why this is important for you
and why it is
part of this story time here on this
video because i have been trying to get
these words trademarked for the past
several months
trademarks are expensive this process is
going to cost me about 700
just to trademark those words there are
numerous sources that you can use to
help you to file your trademark most of
them are going to charge you a fee
and you're also going to have to pay the
government about 300 just to file your
application
and here's the interesting part my
trademark print on demand challenge is
actually becoming very difficult to
actually prove
that i am using it i have now sent to
the government my website i've sent them
copies of this to show them that i am
using the words and they have still yet
to approve my trademark this process
takes
months literally if you go on google and
you look it up it's going to say that
it's going to take between 6 and 12
months to actually get
a trademark approved if the government
even approves it
in the first place why am i telling you
this well as a print-on-demand store
owner especially a beginner odds are
that you have 700
in 6 to 12 months to wait for a
trademark to be
approved for your logo or for your brand
name is probably not very likely
as a beginner you probably don't have
just an extra 700
to protect your logo of your brand that
hasn't even started yet another thing to
actually consider
is will someone actually steal your
brand name will someone actually steal
your logo the odds of that are probably
pretty slim
i'm speaking from experience here i have
never met somebody who had their brand
name or logo stolen from them
of course i have seen people have issues
with designs which we will talk about in
a little bit
but when it comes to actually
trademarking your logo i don't think
that it is something that you need to
waste your time on
if you get to the point where your brand
becomes something big right you're
making tens of thousand dollars a month
on your brand maybe it's time to
consider hiring a lawyer and
filing yourself a trademark with the
government for your logo and for your
brand name but as a beginner it's
probably not worth it the second part of
this
is obviously your designs you're
creating designs putting them on your
store
and then you see another store that is
ripping you off and using the designs
that you have created
now i've already told you earlier in
this video that as the creator of that
artistic work you
have a natural copyright to protect your
own work which means that whoever is
using your design
is automatically violating your
trademark because they are stealing it
here's the tricky part though what are
you gonna do
in order to actually get them to stop
you're gonna have to do
one of two things the first option is
very expensive and as a beginner you're
probably not going to do it it involves
hiring a lawyer filing paperwork with
the courts demanding that they take it
down or that you will sue them right
most of you probably don't have the
money to go sue somebody over
a hooded blanket design you're probably
not going to take the time to actually
go out and find a lawyer who specializes
in that type of thing what if the person
stealing your design lives in a
different country as you then it becomes
a
really really difficult thing to
actually get done in fact the simplest
way to do it is to file something called
a dmca
i'm not going to go into the entire
process a simple google search
will reveal a couple of different
options for you but essentially
a dmca is when you send them a letter
demanding that they take it down you're
basically warning them that you might
pursue legal action you can also work
with the platform
that they are selling the product on
meaning if they're on shopify you can
google the shopify dmca process
and someone can help you out to get that
design removed but when it comes down to
it
you're probably not going to spend any
money on legal fees as a beginner
i would not recommend trademarking
things and wasting the time because like
i said with my print on the man
challenge example
it is taking a long time and it is
costing me 700
to get it done and when it comes to
copyrights to actually take somebody to
court over it is very
expensive folks you're probably not
going to waste the time you're probably
not going to invest the money
you'd be much better off going and
filing a dmca so hopefully today in this
video
some of your questions regarding
trademarks were answered
if you still have questions put them
down in the comments below as always my
name is joe robert thank you guys for
watching
and i'll see you in the next video
Related queries:
how to trademark a design logo
how to register a design trademark
what is a design mark trademark
