How do you protect how your product looks? Today we’re tackling the Two-Headed Monster of Design IP: design patents and trade dress trademarks.

This is where serious protection and some serious money is for innovators in product manufacturing and design.

I’m Julie King of King Patent Law, and welcome to week 4 of this year’s Spooky Season posts!

This week’s topic covers an often-neglected but important way of using intellectual property law to protect your business, which is protecting how your products look.

Utility patents protect how a product works; design IP protects how a product looks. You may need two different types of protection to fully keep your product safe from copycats: design patents and trade dress trademarks.

In this episode:

• Head 1: The Design Patent (0:52)
• • What a Design Patent Protects (1:05)
  • The Power and Advantages of a Design Patent (1:35)
  • The Drawbacks of Design Patents (2:52)
• Head 2: The Trade Dress Trademark (3:48)
• • What a Trade Dress Trademark Protects (3:59)
  • The Power and Advantages of Trade Dress Protection (4:46)
  • The Drawbacks of Trade Dress (5:08)
• Two Heads Are Better Than One: Why You Need Both (6:42)

Intellectual property is one of the most terrifyingly useful tools you have. If you're a creator or other entrepreneur ready to build a frighteningly powerful brand, you need to know how to use it.

You don't have to face the darkness alone. To learn more about protecting your creations, your name, your business, and your legacy, you can book a consultation with me at kingpatentlaw.com. I help entrepreneurs across the U.S. make smart, legally sound decisions about their intellectual property. I'm an attorney in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, and I serve intellectual property clients nationwide.

If this episode helped you survive the horror of learning about how to protect and manage your intellectual property and business, please like and subscribe!

You can find all of my other frighteningly good content on the King Patent Law website, at "Know Your Rights: Your IP and Business Law Playbook" on all major podcast platforms, and at @kingpatentlaw on most social media.

The information provided in this episode is for educational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice or form an attorney-client relationship. You should not act on any information presented here without first seeking the counsel of a licensed attorney for your specific legal needs.

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