And yet that’s what many of us have to do. While keeping 742 other plates sinning in the air for our business, we sometimes come eye-to-eye with work that’s significantly derivative (even worse: a direct copy) of our own. If you have the cash to spare, then I can affirm for you that intellectual property attorneys are worth their weight in gold. If not, then it’s time to climb into some wrestling tights, friend.
It sucks to be on the receiving end of someone else’s copycat energy. I’ve been there, and I’ve gone more than a few rounds with “overly-inspired” individuals. Over the years, I’ve learned how to deftly handle them, putting them on notice and then slowly turning up the heat until they relent and correct the error.
Discovering that someone’s taken a page from your playbook is- to frame things in the gentlest of ways- irritating. The tendency is often to dash of a threatening later that oozes with anger. But that route has never yielded results for me… and I know that for certain because I’ve tried it multiple times.
Seeing that emotional, reactive responses weren’t getting me anywhere, I finally tagged in a wicked good intellectual property attorney. That certainly delivered results, but those results were achieved to the tune of $450 an hour. And most cases required that the attorney invest several hours of work, meaning that chasing off a run-of-the-mill copycat set me back about $2,000 on average. Suffice to say: I didn’t have the funds to tag in a good lawyer on the regular.
So I began studying how other brands were successfully persuading offending parties to behave a bit better by hopping off their beat. Then I took what I had learned about intellectual property infringement from my hot-shot lawyer and blended it with all those sociology classes from my college days (Let me tell you: those bad boys come in handy for us entrepreneurs!) and developed my own DIY system for battling less-than-inspired souls who violate my work.
There are certainly occasions that warrant a solid pair of legal eyes and those eyes are often worth that $2,000 investment. But so many of the cases that I triage each year are easily remedied on my own, and heaven knows that makers and product designers have no shortage of places within their businesses that could benefit from a 2k investment.
This workshop includes a 2-hour video to bring you up to speed on the basics of both trademarks and copyrights, so that you have a strong lay of the land and a trained set of eyes to confirm that someone is actually infringing on your work. You’ll also discover…
- My step-by-step plan for alerting infringers that I’m aware of the offense and plan to enforce my rights.
- Strategies for taking swift action to apply pressure if the offender refuses to budge.
- How I maximize my leverage while reducing my legal bills.
- I’ve also included the exact letters I send when I realize that my work has been copied: a cease and desist letter and a complaint notice to search engines and web hosts.
- Finally, I share the affordable tools I use to automate the detection of copied work, because no one has time to look over their shoulder!
Reclaim your peace of mind and take back your intellectual property by blending psychology with a little legal know-how.
This project is available as an instantly-downloadable asset within the Think Tank, my mastermind program for serious brands-on-the-move. Offered individually, this project is $99, but VIP Think Tank members enjoy…
- A vault filled with dozens of smart business tools (including this project).
- Regular Q+A calls with me, where no business question is off limits.
- Access to a supportive community of product-based business owners who share resources on a daily basis.
- Preferential pricing on every product, service, and software offered by Lucky Break. Save 15% anytime you tag Team LB into the ring to help!
For less than the cost of this one project, you’ll enjoy access to a few dozen information-rich, actionable workshops I designed especially for product-based brands. Membership in the Think Tank is secured on a monthly basis and you can cancel at any time. We’ve made it blissfully simple (and deliciously affordable) to enjoy the business support you need to grow your brand. We’d be honored to have you join us, and you’ll be able to instantly access my Imitation Isn’t The Sincerest Form of Flattery project!
