Tag: intellectual property strategy

  • Starting a Business in Arizona

    Little Waitrose - Birmingham Snow Hill - Colmore Row - Now open - sign by Elliott Brown from Flickr (Creative Commons License)
    Little Waitrose – Birmingham Snow Hill – Colmore Row – Now open – sign by Elliott Brown from Flickr (Creative Commons License)

    Starting a business is exciting and can be overwhelming at times with everything that has to get done. I wish more business owners put more energy into creating structure within their business when they contemplate and launch their endeavors. It will save a lot of pain and frustration in the long run. If your plans for 2015 include starting a business, make sure these steps are on your to-do list in the first month or two of starting your company.

    Discuss with your accountant what type of entity you should form. Every company needs an accountant. In Arizona, you have the option to create a C corporation, an S corporation, a B corporation, or an LLC. I tell all my clients to meet with their accountant to make sure they select the right entity and understand the corresponding tax implications and other responsibilities.

    Check with the Arizona Corporation Commission and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to ensure that the name you want for your business is available. Many companies make the mistake of assuming that just because the website domain they want is available that their desired company or product name hasn’t been registered as a trademark for another company. If you use a name that has already been registered by someone else in the same or similar industry, they can make you rebrand.

    Submit the necessary paperwork and fee with the Arizona Corporation Commission. Consider filing your trade name with the Secretary of State’s Office as well. The forms to file your Articles of Incorporation or your Articles of Organization are on the Arizona Corporation Commission’s website. Make sure you get all the supplemental forms you need. The standard filing fee is $60 for a corporation and $50 for an LLC. The filing fee to register a trade name with the Secretary of State is $10. (Registering a trade name prevents other companies in Arizona from using the same name. It is not a substitute for filing a federal trademark.)

    Create a separate bank account for your business and set up your accounting system. It’s imperative that you keep your company’s corporate veil intact. I strongly recommend using an accounting system like QuickBooks. It makes life so much easier when you’re reviewing your books and preparing for taxes.

    If your LLC has more than one owner, create an operating agreement. If you have a corporation, write your bylaws. These documents will dictate how you will run your business, including how you will divide responsibilities and how you will address problems when they occur. They will help you decide in advance how you will address situations that are likely to occur.

    Create the contract templates you will need for your business. If applicable, write the terms of service for your website. If you are going to be hire to provide a product or service by multiple customers, you will want to have contract templates for those interactions. This creates consistency and uniformity which will help you build your reputation as well as be more efficient. You can customize your templates to suit your needs. I encourage business owners to look at others’ templates for ideas of what they might want to include but be leery of using someone’s template unless it’s been reviewed by your lawyer.

    Discuss what intellectual property your business will or might create and what strategies you will use to protect it. Every business has intellectual property: copyrights, trademarks, patents, and trade secrets. It’s often the company’s most valuable asset. It is important you understand what you have and the best ways to protect it.

    Ideally, you would have a lawyer involved from the beginning of your business, if only to tell you what you should do and when you’re better off hiring a lawyer to work for you. Even if you’re on a shoestring budget, you can find a reasonably priced business lawyer or resources for startups to assist you. It’s also prudent to schedule an annual consultation with your lawyer to educate yourself about what legal issues might be on the horizon and to get advice about what more you should do to protect your business as you have the ability to afford it. It’s easier and cheaper to prevent problems than to clean up the mess when something bad happens.

    If you want to chat with me about starting a business in Arizona, feel free to connect with me on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, or you can email me.

    Please visit my homepage for more information about Carter Law Firm.

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    Ruth Carter

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  • U.S. Copyright Office is Raising its Filing Fees on May 1, 2014

    Burning Nature by Vinoth Chandar from Flickr (Creative Commons License)
    Burning Nature by Vinoth Chandar from Flickr (Creative Commons License)

    Last week, the U.S. Copyright Office announced that it is raising its fees to register your work. Effective May 1, 2014, the cost to register a single work or a collection of works using their online system will go up from $35.00 to $55.00 per application. For those of you who are old school and prefer to register your work by mail, the fee will go up from $65 to $85.

    So if you have projects that you were planning on registering with the Copyright Office, now would be a really good time to get them done.  You only have to get your application in before May 1st; it may take the Copyright office until after May 1st to process it.

    There is one piece of good news in the fee hike announcement. The U.S. Copyright made an exception for individuals who are registering single works that are not “works made for hire.” If you are a photographer, writer, or some other artist and you want to register you works individually, your filing fee will remain at $35 per application.

    I had a question about this exception because I know many artists who create a lot of works that are not works made for hire, but they do it under an LLC for liability and tax purposes.  I called the Copyright Office and they confirmed that you only qualify for the $35 fee if you register as an individual person. If you register your work under your business name, you have to pay $55 per application, even if you are the only person in the business.

    Heart in Pages by Vincent Lock from Flickr (Creative Commons License)
    Heart in Pages by Vincent Lock from Flickr (Creative Commons License)

    The only things that are changing on May 1st are the Copyright Office’s fees. The rest of the copyright laws have remained the same.

    To qualify for a copyright, you need an original work of authorship that is fixed in any tangible medium. When you have a copyright, you have the exclusive right to control where your work is copied, distributed, displayed, performed, and what derivative works can be made from it. You get these rights the moment your work is created, even if you never register it with the Copyright Office and even if you don’t put a copyright notice on your work – i.e. “© [Copyright Owner’s Name] [Year].”  If you register your work, your registration provides the presumption of ownership and validity of your copyright rights. If you ever want to sue for copyright infringement when someone steals your work, you must register your work with the U.S. Copyright Office first.

    If you want to talk more about copyright, copyright registration, or intellectual property strategy, connect with me on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, or you can email me. If you post your original work online, I strongly recommend you check out the many chapters on copyrights in my books:

    Please subscribe to the Carter Law Firm newsletter and visit my homepage for more information about Carter Law Firm.

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    Ruth Carter

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