How important is IP to your business? (full version)
Various business owners talk about the importance of intellectual property (IP) to the success of their companies.
Matty Miller, All Pave Landscaping: My business name’s All Pave Landscaping and Stonework. I’ve been in business for seven years.
Darren, Makin Trax Australia: My business is called Mackin Trax Australia. We design, build and maintain mountain bike multi-use and walking tracks. We’ve been in business for five years.
Effie, Gizmo’s Café: Business name is Gizmo’s Café. Buy Serious Café. We’ve been in business for over fifteen years.
Todd, Threesides: My name is Todd and I work for Threesides and Threesides is an online marketing and training company. We’ve been in business for roundabout four years.
Craig, Autografika: Business name is Autografika. We do basically vehicle graphics and signage, digital print, graphic design. Ah we’ve been in business for nearly a year and a half.
James Steele, Interactive Multimedia Pty Ltd: I’m the director of Interactive Multimedia Propriety Limited and we’ve been in business for about twenty years, over twenty years now.
Dean Spencer, Dean’s Towing: Ah Dean’s Towing. Just over a year. Pretty much all aspects of towing – machines, cars, breakdowns, accidents.
What do you know about Intellectual Property?
Matty Miller: I didn’t actually know anything about it until I had a brief word to you about it so yeah, but I do know about trade marks and stuff like that. Obviously Coca Cola’s a trade mark.
Darren Makin Trax Australia: I know a lot more about intellectual property now that I’ve spoken to IP Australia but previous to that I was a little bit in the dark.
Effie: Nothing.
Todd: Obviously it’s the ownership of ideas, the ownership of things you create that have value. Things like systems and processes. Things like business names, brand names.
Craig: Any of your branding, any ideas you come up with, um products that you make yourself.
James Steele: Well intellectual property is hugely important in our business, in filmmaking and multi media and those sorts of things. Mainly copyright rather than patents or designs or other things. Trade marks for example. We don’t have much to do with that.
Dean Spencer: Ah nothing, never heard of it.
How important do you think Intellectual Property is to your business?
Matty Miller: Yeah, I’d find it pretty important, especially if you’d gone to all the effort to um, yeah get a business logo and a name and do the hard yards there.
Darren Makin Trax Australia: If you’ve got a business and you’re interested in building a name and building a brand and building your business, it’s imperative.
Effie: I don’t know because I don’t know what it is.
Todd: It’s something that when we first started we didn’t worry about. We thought, oh yeah, if this business thing works, you know we’ve got our money in the bank and that’s fine. But when you start thinking about things about building value in your business and even one day thinking about selling our business, intellectual property is one the assets we could actually sell. We’ve actually, in the last couple of weeks, gone and registered Threesides as a trade mark and we’ve started recognising the value of protecting that.
Craig: I think it’s very important as we’re trying to build the brand.
James Steele: Well it’s vital. Intellectual property is vital for our business. We need to ensure that all of the material that we produce is copyright cleared. Any material that we produce for sale, if we publish it for example, that other people don’t come in and take that away from us.
Dean Spencer: Don’t know. Ah don’t know what it is, so not sure how to answer that one.
Does your business have a brand or logo? How would you feel if someone copied or stole it?
Matty Miller: No, I wouldn’t be real happy at all.
Darren Makin Trax Australia: Yes, we do have a logo and a brand which we’re very protective of and if someone, or a business did use it or steal it or inadvertently use it, we would exercise all our legal rights to protect that brand and to hold onto it.
Effie: It does have a logo and I wouldn’t really like it because you work hard to make a name for yourself.
Todd: We’d be pretty devastated. We’ve put a lot of time and effort into building a really valuable brand not only with our customers but in our market place. If it was stolen, yeah we’d probably go out and have to go rough a few people up and there’s been a few businesses that we’ve kept our eye on that haven’t started looking at using different variations of using the word three. So now we’ve become very protective.
Craig: Ah, I’d be devastated.
James Steele: I’d hate it if somebody stole my logo.
Dean Spencer: Ah yeah I’ve got a logo on the trucks and T Shirts. I’d be pretty annoyed if someone pinched it.
Who do you see for business advice?
Matty Miller: Ah, usually my accountant.
Darren Makin Trax Australia: IP Australia is definitely the first port of call. Their website and online information is very helpful.
Effie: Usually our accountant.
Todd: There’s a lot of different people that we see for advice in our business um, small business advisory services that might have experts in different areas. We also go and see our accountant if we want to look for business growth advice and financial advice. The other people we see are other business owners, even our clients.
Craig: My dad is usually my business mentor.
James Steele: Google can be your friend in this regard.
Dean Spencer: Ah accountant and bank manager.
Would you be interested in learning more about how to protect your business’ Intellectual Property?
Matty Miller: Yeah, most definitely.
Darren Makin Trax Australia: Most definitely. There are lots of things that I’m sure I can learn and I’m definitely open to that.
Effie: Now I would because I would like to know what it is.
Todd: As long as it’s interesting, yeah absolutely.
Craig: Yeah, it would be of value I think, for our business.
James Steele: I think learning more about how to protect the intellectual property in the business is incredibly important.
Dean Spencer: Oh yeah for sure, yep.
Last Updated: 15/9/2012
