Patent Attorney and Founder
Hey everybody my name is JD Houvener I’m your host to the bolt today’s show this is where you the inventor entrepreneur or business owner get your daily inspiration to make the world a better place all right we’re at the end of our series on cannabis and marijuana and I want to talk about the different aspects of copyright and trade secret those the last two areas of IP we haven’t yet talked about in the cannabis industry and so with trade secrets we’ve talked about this before on the show but I want to lay out the big three elements that are true in every single state you’ve gotta be able to have something that’s not known in the public right not readily ascertainable it’s called the second element you must be making efforts to keep the information secret and the last element is that that information that trade secret knowledge has to be economically valuable those are the big three tenants in order to having a trade secret certainly within the cannabis world there’s tons of great information and it can range from anything from business processes or how you’re actually doing the growing and the cutting and the processing and the trimming and the packaging of the product to something much more you know generic like a customer list vendor lists directions I mean certain information and processes for how your company does what it does the second thing I want to talk about today is copyright protection as you may know copyrights originate from the from the mind right these are creative works that are expressed through through humans and there as long as they’re captured right fixed in the tangible means recorded on a microphone picked up on a cloud recording device or put on to a record these are these are creative works that are put out there by artists and so yes definitely copyright is a big deal for those in the cannabis industry those creating whether it be videos photographs images songs right all of that is a part of what makes up a business’s brand and how do you just sort of develop a theme to your customers and so any of those media right any of that creative publications that you have out there on your website and print media all that is protectable and should be thought of as an intellectual property registration can be sought it should be sought especially for those works that are going to be sold you know something that’s put together in a portfolio video even an advertisement that’s gonna be licensed that only has been protected and it should be filed with the Library of Congress so we’ve covered it all this week we’ve touched on patent law trade secret got trademark copyright and we’ve also touched a little bit on overall business strategy cannabis as we know is it as a major substance and while I that’s still federally controlled more than half the states have no legalized it so if you haven’t really thought about yet I encourage you to please think hard about how it’s gonna impact you and your business even if it’s tangentially hope have a wonderful weekend ahead I look forward to talking with you next week I’m your host of the bold today’s show JD Houvener I hope you’ll have a great day go big go bowl
[Music]
you