Intellectual Property for Creative Entrepreneurs

X Creative IP for Businesses

“Thank you for taking the course. I trust you feel you know rather more about IP in general, as well as what IP and intellectual assets you own. This unit is the end of the course, but I am going to give you a guide to help you complete your final project. And please, do participate in the forum. Any questions you have, ideas or thinking you’d like to contribute really helps everyone’s understanding of IP and ways to harness it. Every person involved in any form of creative practice creates intellectual property (IP) which they own. Whether you are a songwriter, a potter, a product designer, a games developer or a painter. As you’re a creator of IP it is important that you understand what IP is, what you already own or could own and how to manage it. Once you have grasped this, it means you will be able to reproduce your IP, exploit it or monetise it - should you so choose. During a busy creative career, many creative people lose track of what they own. No matter where you are in your creative journey, by starting to understand and gather together your IP you will stand yourself in good stead for the future. Throughout this course, we follow a case study of a documentary production company, Docco, to see what IP they have. Your IP will, of course, be unique to you, but the steps to go through are exactly the same. Your final project is to undertake an audit of your intellectual property and intellectual assets, to gather them together and consider how you will manage them. You will also ensure you have considered your contracts/T&Cs and dealings with other people’s intellectual property. Share your work in the forum by clicking on the "Create your project" button above. The first three steps map your intellectual property, the next three steps will help you to understand what intellectual assets you own. To start… 1. Copyright map Looking back over your creative journey - from teenage or student days onwards, list out all the copyright material that you own. If it is a large amount, pull together the key projects. This is everything that you have created from scratch, not the idea, but the actual expression of the idea - whether physical or digital. If you have passed over IP to clients during the course of your work, it is still useful to gather a list of this together too. In our course case study, the founder of Docco realised she owned more copyright than she had anticipated. This is likely to be the case with most creative individuals and companies. 2. Set up an IP Library Work out how and where you will store the copyright images or items so you can access them if you need. An online IP library is ideal for digital files. 3. Trademark, design right and patent registration map The next step is to list out any intellectual property you have registered, such as trademarks, design rights or patents. Ensure you are aware of what you have registered, where they are registered and when the registration dates run out. Noting these on a spreadsheet is a useful way of keeping a record which can be stored in your IP library, allowing you easy access to it. Now we will be moving on to intellectual assets - these include everything that has contributed to your ‘journey to here’. 4. Draw up your life story (Use the 'Background Questions' file that you will find attached in Unit 5) Write out the story of your life. Of course this is completely unique to you, so take time to understand the influences of where you grew up, your education, your hobbies and passions, your skills and abilities, the stages in your working life, different places you have lived. These contribute extensively to how you live, work and create. You cannot assess their impact fully unless you have mapped your life carefully. Doing this together with a friend or close colleague can be helpful, with them asking the questions and noting down your answers. Writing it up on large sheets of paper on the wall using coloured pens allows you to stand back and take a long view. Often patterns of behaviour, or influences on your creativity, become more obvious when you work this way. It also allows you to easily add in aspects you may have overlooked. It should be an enjoyable process, reminding you of forgotten influences and phases. It is enlightening to see how far you have come during your life. 5. Pull together an alphabetic list of customers/clients The next step with the intellectual asset audit is to write an alphabetical list of all the clients and customers you have worked with. These can give you insight into the patterns of work you do, the knowledge you have absorbed and gained, the sectors you are familiar with, the themes, trends and currents you engage with. The list also allows you to reflect on copyright you may have overlooked. 6. Compile a list of everything you have been paid to do The client list is also a useful reminder for this next part of the final project - compiling a list of everything you have been paid to do during your working life. This list - which is likely to be quite lengthy - will help you to recognise (and acknowledge) all the skills and capabilities you have. These are an important part of your intellectual assets. Do not be generalist about it - be more specific as this helps to drill down into your true capabilities and the nuances of your offer. 7. Use the PICKS methodology to unpack more of your intellectual assets (Use the 'PICKS Methodology' file that you will find attached in Unit 5) By using our simple methodology, you will be able to break down your working practice in greater detail to add further to your list of assets in ways you may not have anticipated. Draw up five columns and put whichever one of the list below you are planning to unpack for your offer at the top of the Left-hand column. Range the other four titles across the other four columns. Now choose which aspect of your business you want to unpack - for example, I could put Product at the top of my left-hand column, writing ‘business book’ underneath it as this is one of my business offers that I might want to dig further into. Or if I wanted to look at my ‘business growth coaching’ I would put Service at the top of the left hand column. The five column titles to choose from are: • Product • Intel/Data • Client/Customer • Knowledge • Service Unpack different aspects of your chosen business offer across the other columns. For example, my book was aimed at freelancers and micro business owners, so I put them in the ‘Client/Customer’ column. But it was also important that the press and media knew about it, that I targeted agents and publishers. So I added these to that column too. The PICKS methodology is to help you better understand what has contributed to your chosen business offer from the other areas in the past and where you can develop it in the future. Everything you note down is adding to the intellectual assets of your business. I hope that you have really enjoyed reviewing your creative journey, finding out what IP you own, how your intellectual assets have been accumulating throughout your career and life. It can be so heartening to see all of that work in one place - and now you can start to manage it effectively. Helping creative practitioners to understand what IP and assets they own is such an important part of what I do - so please don’t hesitate to get in touch if you have questions or ideas you want to share. I’m looking forward to hearing from you. Bye! ”

Partial transcription of the video

“Final Project We've reached the end of the IP for Creatives course. Congratulations for all you have achieved. You've learned so much from each of the lessons, and should be in a great position to start earning more revenue from all of the intellectual property that you've gathered together. You began the course by learning about myself, my credentials and my inspirations. Before we got stuck into learning about what sort of IP is out there, copyright, trademarks, design rights, and patents. We then met our case study Loubna, and as I taught you all about the sorts of IP you have, we then r...”

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Course summary for: Intellectual Property for Creative Entrepreneurs

• Level: Beginner
• 93% positive reviews (61)
• 1779 students
• 5 units
• 17 lessons (2h 26m)
• 2 downloads

• Category

  Marketing & Business

• Areas

  Creative Consulting, Design Management, Marketing