#awinewith Lauren Stokoe
MEET Lauren, Product Manager at IP Australia.
You can find them here:
Transcript
Danielle Lewis (00:07):
Welcome, Lauren. It's so good to have you here on Spark tv.
Lauren Stokoe (00:12):
Hello. Thank you so much for having me.
Danielle Lewis (00:14):
I am super excited about today's episode because it's a little bit different than normal. So usually we are interviewing amazing women in business, and today we're interviewing an amazing supporter of women in business. So excited to have you on the podcast. Lauren is from IP Australia, so why don't we kick things off with who you are, what your role is, and what is IP Australia?
Lauren Stokoe (00:43):
Sure, yes. So as you mentioned, my name's Lauren, so Lauren sko and I am one of the directors at IP Australia. I work in the customer experience group and basically IP Australia is the Australian government agency that's responsible for administering IP or intellectual property rights. Basically what our mission is is to have a world leading Australian IP system that helps build prosperity through innovation. We know that IP helps to encourage innovation, and one of the things that we're really passionate about is supporting small to medium businesses to be able to have efficient access to products and services so that they can continue to innovate and do what they do best.
Danielle Lewis (01:28):
I love that so much and I love that that's why we've partnered with IP Australia as well because you are such passionate supporters of not only women in business, but innovation and business in general. So yeah, super excited for this conversation. So we often get asked, what is intellectual property and why is it actually important? What are your thoughts on that?
Lauren Stokoe (01:52):
So IP refers to creations of the mind. Basically, it could include anything from a brand or a logo to an invention or a design or an artistic work or even plant varieties. So new plant varieties, IP rights legally protect your idea and they give you the exclusive rights to profit from them. So IP provides a number of benefits. There's two types of ip. There's registered intellectual property, and then there's unregistered intellectual property. Registered IP is why you would deal with say, US IP Australia. That's where you need to formally recognize and register an IP with the office. So that includes filing an application, paying a fee. Then there's unregistered ip, and that's like copyright is the most, well-known one, and that's automatically protected once it's in material form. So you have that IP to basically be able to protect and encourage your innovation and something from the women's perspective that might be of interest to you. When we did our intellectual property report last year in 2023, we found that women's participation, startup management teams was linked to an increase in overall IP holdings. So basically the more women that were involved in management teams, the more IP they had. Cool. I love that. Yeah. Yeah, I was really excited when I read that in the IP report. I was guess
Danielle Lewis (03:16):
So it sounds like there are different kinds of IP and different kinds of trademark protection for small businesses. Can you kind of talk us through how it all works and what types there are?
Lauren Stokoe (03:30):
Absolutely. There are seven types of ip, and my favorite way to describe those seven types is through a business selling coffee. So let's say you and I have a coffee shop,
Danielle Lewis (03:42):
I'm excited already.
Lauren Stokoe (03:44):
The first type of IP that we might have protects the new plant varieties, so that's the plant breeders. So let's say we have a new coffee plant, we get a new type of coffee bean, we want to protect that, or the farmer might want to protect that. That's through a plant breeders, right? Then you go, okay, I take that coffee bean and then I use my coffee machine to be able to turn it into coffee. Let's say I have a new type of coffee machine, a new invention, a patent protects how that invention works. From there, the coffee will go into a cup and let's say we've got this awesome design for a cup that will be protected by a design.
(04:25):
We then want to sell our coffee, so we need a brand. Our brand is protected by a registered trademark, so we could have say a logo that's on our coffee cup. Then if we have a brochure showing advertising, the different types of coffee that we sell, what is written there? So the original expression of that idea is covered automatically covered by copyright. The four previous ones, you need to register copyright, you don't need to register. It's automatically protected once it's in written in material form. Then we might have a trade secret. Let's say a secret blend of coffee beans that would be protected by trade secrets are generally protected by non-disclosure agreements. So rather than registered ip. And then finally there's circuit layouts. So as in chips, computer chips. So different layouts for those circuits are also automatically protected. So they're the seven different types of IP that you might want or that you might want to have as part of your sort of business planning. A lot of businesses have multiple forms of IP that they think about that they strategize and go, okay, these are the ones that we need to protect. This is one that we need to treat as an intangible asset.
Danielle Lewis (05:40):
Yeah, well, it's really interesting. I think sometimes when we think of ip, you kind of just think of your logo, but it's really interesting that it's actually a lot more complex than that, and there's all of these different things that you can actually, I love the coffee shop story because it kind of helps visualize each of the parts of your business and how IP relates to them. I think that's super cool. So why would you actually register a trademark? And I guess maybe I get confused with copyright and trademarks because you kind go, it's mine, I made it and I put it on my things. Well, surely it can be mine.
Lauren Stokoe (06:21):
So copyright really applies when books for instance, or your pamphlets or your movies and your scripts and songs, the words of the song and things like that, when it's a written expression or a material expression, it's automatically covered. Where trademarks come in is more along the lines of business names and logos that they're not automatically covered. You need to basically have a registered trademark. So that registered trademark gives you the exclusive use of that trademark across Australia. So it's country by country, and in Australia it's for an initial period of 10 years, and then you can renew it forever if you'd like, but that gives you that legal avenue. There are people internally, one of the trademark examiners called it a Sword and a Shield to me once, and it stuck in my brain because it went okay. It's a sword in that if someone else is using your trademark, you can use it as a legal avenue to say, send a cease and desist letter. But it's also that shield. If someone else says, Hey, you're using my trademark, or I've got this idea too, and you're using it and you can say, well, actually I registered it. It's my idea. I'm using it, and then it's an asset and you can license it, you can sell it.
Danielle Lewis (07:39):
That's so cool. I know from personal experience, it's one of the questions. So when we started capital raising for one of our businesses, investors would often ask what IP assets we had. So I love that you're referring to them as an asset because I also think sometimes we feel as business owners like, this is so complex, do we really need to worry about it? But I think I love how you're saying it's an asset, like, okay, don't think about it as a chore or a legal box. You've got a tick. Actually, think about it as building your foundations to your business and increasing the value of your business. I think that's really cool.
Lauren Stokoe (08:20):
Exactly, and when it comes to, for instance, trademarks, we all know the value of a brand. It's very well understood, but that brand is what differentiates you from a customer. It's about protecting that differentiation basically.
Danielle Lewis (08:35):
I have a horror story, actually, a girlfriend of mine started a beauty brand and she did have to change her name logo colors because she hadn't actually registered it, and somebody else had something very close, and I mean, look, she recovered and it was fine and blah, blah, blah. But such a rigmarole. You spend so much money designing your logo and your website and your brand
Lauren Stokoe (09:02):
As well as the emotional attachment you have to it.
Danielle Lewis (09:04):
That's exactly what I was just thinking. I'm like, you love it. You came up with this name, all that stuff. Do you have any good and bad examples of where people have used IP protection to either save themselves or they've gone to hot water or anything like that?
Lauren Stokoe (09:22):
Yeah, we unfortunately hear that story quite a bit. We did a very small survey a couple of years ago when we created the products that I look after, which called TM Checker, but basically we did some surveys of small businesses and we actually found, of the a hundred that we talked to, 48 of them had to rebrand.
Danielle Lewis (09:40):
Oh my God. Really?
Lauren Stokoe (09:42):
What you think? Yeah, I was surprised. I must admit, I didn't think it was, I can't
Danielle Lewis (09:46):
Believe it's that big.
Lauren Stokoe (09:47):
Yeah, I mean maybe it was just this sample for whatever reason, but even so two examples. I do have one of each. There was an example with Heston Blumenthal Blumenthal.
Danielle Lewis (09:59):
Oh yeah,
Lauren Stokoe (10:00):
The Celebr fancy
Danielle Lewis (10:01):
Chef guy. Yeah,
Lauren Stokoe (10:03):
So he is internationally well known as a chef. Then there was a small business in Sydney that was operating under the Fat Duck name, and they didn't have a trademark, and basically Heston came in to Australia and went, I already have Fat Duck elsewhere, but I haven't registered in Australia. Applied to have it registered in Australia to have Fat Duck using that name. Long story short, fat Duck. The Sydney restaurant is now renamed, and Heston now owns that trademark because they didn't have the trademark and that consistent use and things like that to be able to protect it. So that's where someone, a bigger brand name came in and said, look, you don't have that protection. There's also a flip side story that I absolutely love, and that's Katie Perry, pop star, Katie Perry. There's
Danielle Lewis (10:54):
A
Lauren Stokoe (10:55):
Fashion designer in Australia that also goes under the name Katie Perry, that's her name, and she was selling clothing under the trademark of Katie Perry, and she did have a trademark. Then when Katie Perry was selling sort of fashion items, basically sent that cease and desist to the fashion designer and the fashion designer was able to take her registered trademark to court and won.
Danielle Lewis (11:24):
Oh my God, I love that.
Lauren Stokoe (11:26):
Yes. So I do know it's back in court again. I think Katie Perry, the pop star is perhaps going trying again. So that story's not over yet, but she did win the first time it went through to court.
Danielle Lewis (11:40):
Wow. So it's really interesting, isn't it? Just having that box ticked, registered done, and then just at any point in the future can kind of lean back on that if anybody does try and anything. Yeah,
Lauren Stokoe (11:55):
And consistent news comes into it in terms of you're showing that I am using this registered trademark, I'm using it in the course of my business. My customers recognize my business through this trademark. It just gives you a really solid story to be able to say, this is my trademark. I own it. This is my asset, which then gives more defensibility.
Danielle Lewis (12:17):
I love that. Yeah, it's so good. So then how would you actually check a trademark's availability using, how would one go about it? If anyone's listening in right now and they're like, oh my God, I could get in hot water. What should they do?
Lauren Stokoe (12:32):
I love that question always. Whenever I talk to small business owners, that's always my number one tip is the first thing to do is just go and check that you're not already accidentally using somebody. A lot of the misuse that happens is accidental people aren't purposely trying to do it. So to check it, we created, that's why we created TM Checker, so you can get to it at TM checker dot ip Australia gov au. Basically, it's built for small and medium businesses where you can enter your potential trademark or your brand name or your logo, enter what you sell, so your goods and services, so the things that you provide to your customers, and then it will help. It basically uses AI to see is there anything else out there already on the Australian Register and is there some potential issues from a distinctiveness perspective?
(13:26):
So what I mean by that is it's not just is someone else using it, but there's also a few other conditions that when you register for a trademark, a trained trademark examiner from IP Australia, we'll have a look at it and go, is this fair to use? So things might be like Apple's a good example. Apple could trade with the word apple and then sell electronics, but imagine if they were an Apple shop, they would exclude everyone else from the Apple shop from wanting to use a word that they need to use in their normal business. So it's things like that that distinctiveness. And then also, is someone else using it? Is it potentially a rude remark or something that's potentially offensive? So there's some other considerations that examiners look at, but from a similarity perspective, team checker will help you to search the engine so that way you can make a decision straight away going in, you can go, oh, oops, there is already a Cadbury chocolate. Probably can't use that.
Danielle Lewis (14:26):
Yeah, I love that. And I love that it's online as well. That's so easy. Just jump in. And it's great in that when you're in that ideation phase as well, and you've probably got a post-it note with 10 different words, 10 different names, how you going and check first.
Lauren Stokoe (14:43):
Yeah, I talked to some branding companies that work with small business owners and provide these recommendations going, oh, when you're providing these recommended names, can you just check that they're available as a trademark first? Oh,
Danielle Lewis (14:56):
Yeah. Before you get sold the dream and you're like, oh, I love it so much,
Lauren Stokoe (15:01):
And you can use TM Checker to then apply for that trademark if you'd like to, or you can go through an IP attorney or you can go straight through IP Australia as well.
Danielle Lewis (15:11):
Yeah, that was going to be my next question. So we've gone to TM Checker, we're like, okay, my trademark looks good, it looks available. What would be the next step? How do I actually apply for a trademark with IP Australia?
Lauren Stokoe (15:25):
So you can use TM Checker, and that takes you through what we call the Head Start process, which is basically it goes to an examiner and they'll look at it in five days to say, that's quick. Actually there's some issues X, Y, Z, or Nope, you're good to go. No one else is using it. We don't see any other issues. And then that goes on to you pay a second fee and then that goes as a full application and is registered in about from seven and a half months. So because of international treaties, it has to take seven and a half months
(15:57):
The minimum, but you can at least get your answer back within the five days. So okay, I'm good to go. And then you're backdated to that date of that protection, and that is $330 per class. So to give you an idea, there's 45 classes you can choose from big companies, apple, Samsung, they might go more towards a 45. The average sort of company that I've seen personally has been two to three classes, one to two to three classes. So we're not talking all 45, so that's three $30 per class. Otherwise you can apply through just our standard, but that takes 13 weeks, which is why it's a bit cheaper. So it's $250 a class, and you can apply just standard through IP Australia, and all you need is your trademark, your goods and services and basically the owner
Danielle Lewis (16:49):
To be able to
Lauren Stokoe (16:49):
Apply. That's all you need to apply. And if you do have, because some people do have quite complicated businesses and they're not quite sure what to choose, they offer so many different services. You can also go talk to an IP attorney, but that's separate to IP Australia.
Danielle Lewis (17:07):
And that's just what I was thinking in my head as we are talking through it now, it's sounding simpler and simpler as we talk through the steps. And I was like, okay, I wonder why then you would go to a lawyer, an IP lawyer or a trademark attorney to do it. But I guess you're right, some people do have quite complex businesses and
Lauren Stokoe (17:26):
They can, and sometimes if you do get, so it enters something called an opposition period, which basically means, which is something if you do have a registered trademark, you should probably keep a look an eye out for. But there's a period in that seven and a half months where someone could say, Hey, I already used that trademark, and they can oppose it, which you then reply to and everything like that. But sometimes that can get a little bit complicated. So at IP Australia, we're trying to make it as simple as possible for small business owners to register that trademark, but in cases where there's some more complexity, that's where an IP attorney can be handy.
Danielle Lewis (18:07):
I love that. So then I love, you mentioned the Katie Perry story, so obviously there's sometimes, hopefully not often that you do have to defend your trademark. So how does that work? If you saw somebody who was using your name or brand or something like that, how would you actually enforce the fact that you have a trademark?
Lauren Stokoe (18:34):
That's a good question. Having a trademark isn't the last and only step. It's a first step. You have your registered trademark and you need to use it consistently so that you can show you haven't just bought it and set and forget. You need to have that consistent use. And then, yes, monitoring for unauthorized use or infringement, which thanks to the internet, can be done quite a bit more easily these days. You can regularly search Team Checker or our IP Australia or websites like IP Australia for similar trademarks. You can monitor your competitors' activities. You can look for Instagram hashtags, you can search for social media, you can search URLs. You can see if your brand name is being used by someone other than you, and if that does happen without your permission, there's a few different things you can do. The first is sending a cease and desist letter to that person to basically say, I'm the registered trademark owner. You can't use this. And a lot of the times that can be successful because people aren't aware that someone already was owning it and already owned it and that there's an issue. If that unauthorized use continues, you can take legal action against the infringer, in which case you do need to or probably would contact an IP attorney. And then there's a couple of other few alternative dispute opportunities. So things like mediation and stuff like that, which IP Australia offers, which if you do end up in that predicament, there's information on our website about it.
Danielle Lewis (20:08):
Okay, awesome. Yeah, I love that you said registering the trademark as the first step. So it's kind of like if something bad happens, you've got that to fall back on, but if you don't take the first step, then yeah, you're going to be, you might get yourself into hot water.
Lauren Stokoe (20:26):
You could. There is ways to protect it through common law provisions to say, oh, but I've been using this in my business and it's possible, but it's hard.
Danielle Lewis (20:36):
Basically make it easy for yourself people. I love that. Yes. So can you trademark anything or is there, I know we've talked about a name, a logo. Is that it or can you trademark more than that? What's the scope?
Lauren Stokoe (20:53):
There's a surprising amount of things that you can trademark. The name, logo or phrase that the most common ones, the Nike, just do it. Those sort of things. You can trademark letters, numbers. They are harder to get though sounds, so jingles can be trademarked.
Danielle Lewis (21:11):
Sense, sense, smell.
Lauren Stokoe (21:13):
What? There's very few of them. So one of them is actually the smell of, I think it's a eucalyptus oil on a golf tea.
Danielle Lewis (21:22):
Its actually trademarked.
Lauren Stokoe (21:23):
Yeah, yeah. That smell is trademarked. That's hilarious. Trademark pictures, movements. So like the Salt Bay,
Danielle Lewis (21:32):
Oh my God. Of course.
Lauren Stokoe (21:34):
Effective packaging. So the Coca-Cola bottle for instance, that shape or any combination of those and colors as well. So Tiffany, blue Cadbury purple. They're more rare and they're more difficult to get, but they are possible.
Danielle Lewis (21:47):
Wow, that's cool. Any tips? The Spark peeps are small business owners, women in business. Any tips for them when they go through this process? So whether they're thinking about, they're reflecting on their IP and thinking they need to go through this process, any kind of tips to get them started?
Lauren Stokoe (22:12):
So first thing I would do is basically a bit of an audit of what you've got. What assets do you have that you rely on for your business that could actually fall under the banner of an intellectual property? Do you have an invention? Do you have a brand? Do you have a design? What is it that you rely on or that you need to have there for your businesses to succeed? Then with that, make sure that it's, particularly if it's a trademark, make sure it's distinctive, so something that's unique and memorable that will really help you with that branding easily. Like Spark will help you to easily identify and go, oh, okay, yeah, now I remember talking to someone from Spark. Then you need to conduct a thorough search. So that's coming into places like TM Checker or the IP offices, their websites and seeing their search systems to see, has anyone else had this idea before this brand, before this patent invention before which if you're only selling in Australia, you can do using Australian sites. Otherwise you might want to go a bit broader. Internationally, they're always called intellectual property offices, so they're quite easy to find through Google and then just using, once you've got that right and okay, I'm good, then it's just consistently using it and just keeping an eye on it just like you would any other asset in your business.
Danielle Lewis (23:33):
I love that I started this conversation thinking, oh my God, we're talking about plant breeder rights and this is going to, but I love that you've distilled it down and gone. Okay, no is super important because we're talking about protection for your business, building assets. There's value there, but actually it's not hard to get started. You can jump online, TM checker and literally in seconds kind of get some answers. It's very cool.
Lauren Stokoe (24:00):
Yeah, there's a lot of information out there and there's a couple of services. There's something for small businesses called the Patents, SME Service. If you're a small business and you haven't used an IP attorney before and you want to get a patent, there's actually a free service where we can offer you some more information that you might get. Otherwise, there's TM Checker for trademark, so there's quite a bit there to support small businesses.
Danielle Lewis (24:25):
That's so good. We'll make sure that we link up all of that in the show notes as well so that people can get easy access. Lauren, you are the best. Thank you so much for jumping on this episode of Spark TV and sharing the IP Australia wisdom. I know even personally, I just got a lot of clarity, so I know everyone dialing in will get that as well. So thank you so much for your time.
Lauren Stokoe (24:48):
Great to hear, and thank you so much for having me. Really appreciate it.
✨ Thank you to IP Australia for supporting the SPARK podcast and women in business ✨
