When you have a business, either brick and mortar or online, you have intellectual property (IP) that needs to be protected. One way to protect your brand is with a trademark.

In simplest terms, if you don't trademark your brand elements like your name, logo, slogan, and so on, you could find yourself in very big and very expensive trouble later.

Listen to Episode 14 of the Circle Legal Business Fix-It Show and learn how to protect your brand so someone else doesn't ride your coattails of success.

TRANSCRIPT AND AUDIO OF EPISODE #14
Announcer: It’s time to LIFT your business and your life on the Circle Legal Business Fix-It Show with your hosts, Kelley Keller and Susan Gunelius. Learn how to build a business you love on a solid foundation that delivers the future you want for you and your family. Here are your hosts, Kelley and Susan.

Kelley Keller: Innovative companies, business owners, and families, welcome to the Circle Legal Business Fix-It Show where you will learn to LIFT your business and your life with help from recognized legal and business experts you can trust. I’m your host, Kelley Keller, coming to you from the iHeartMedia studios in Harrisburg and with me is my co-host, Susan Gunelius who is joining us remotely via video conference. Hi Susan. How are you doing?

Susan Gunelius: I am great, Kelley. This week we have such an awesome show planned. I can’t wait to get started.

Kelley: Yes, we have another awesome guest with us today, my colleague, Attorney Ryan Siney who is joining us to talk about my personal favorite topic: intellectual property for small businesses. Welcome, Ryan, to the show.

Ryan Siney: Thanks, Kelley.

Kelley: Well, before we properly introduce Ryan, let’s be sure our listeners are up to speed. Remember, the Circle Legal Business Fix-It Show is all about building and maintaining a solid LIFT Foundation. LIFT being the essential Legal, Insurance, Finance, and Tax building blocks of your business. Without a strong LIFT Foundation, even the most innovative companies will fail.

Susan: That is absolutely true. So what’s most important is to remember the nine steps to building a strong LIFT Foundation. We’ve been covering one of these just about each show since we started. Let’s go over them quickly.

Number one, plan for the business you want. Two, become a business owner. Three, get the insurance you need. Four, become an employer. Five, review your intellectual property. Six, protect yourself with contracts. Seven, start advertising and selling online. Eight, secure the right tax position. And nine, plan for your future.

Today, we’re going to talk about number five on the list to getting your LIFT Foundation in place and that is reviewing your intellectual property. If you’ve missed any of the previous steps, go to CircleLegalRadio.com and listen to our archived episodes or read the transcripts and you can catch up.

Kelley: Today, since we’re actually covering my personal area of expertise, I’m setting my role as co-host aside and jumping into the hot seat with you, Ryan. We’re very used to working together to help small businesses that have found themselves in some legal hot water over various intellectual property issues so I think this will be a really fun conversation.

Susan: And I also want to remind everybody about Circle Legal’s eBook that you can download from CircleLegal.com. It’s called 41 Steps to Start a Business and Build Wealth the Right Way. It’s free for download, and intellectual property, the topic we’re talking about today, is Step 11 in that eBook. So go ahead and get it and you can learn some more there as well.

I first want to introduce both Kelley and Ryan. We’ll go over Kelley’s background again in case you aren’t familiar with it because she has such a cool background in intellectual prope...