By Colleen DeBaise
Adapted from the upcoming book THE WALL STREET JOURNAL COMPLETE SMALL BUSINESS GUIDEBOOK (Three Rivers Press, Dec. 29, 2009).
You want to spread the word about your business. But you also want to keep your innovative product or clever brand name safe from rivals, counterfeiters or rip-off artists. What to do? Safeguarding your company’s intellectual property through patents, trademarks or copyrights will allow you to seek damages, a big deterrent to imitators. Here’s a brief overview of all three types of protection.
Patents. Issued by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office(USPTO), a patent is easily the most expensive— and most valuable— protection for an entrepreneur with a innovative product or business method. A patent essentially gives you a mini-monopoly for twenty years. The application process can be a bit complicated, so it’s wise to use the services of a patent attorney. Costs generally range from $2,000 to $10,000, depending on complexity.
Trademarks. A word, symbol, logo or image that identifies a product or service can be trademarked, as can a scent, sound or color (such as Tiffany Blue). There are more than forty classes of goods and services, and you can register a trademark (for a fee) in more than one category. A pastry shop ower, for instance, could register a trademark in both the food class (in the goods category) and the restaurant class (in the services category). You can conduct a free search to see if a mark is already registered on the USPTO’s Web site using the Trademark Electronic Search System. The filing fee is $375 if done by paper and $275 to $325 if done electronically.
Copyright. A copyright protects original works, such as poetry, novels, movies, songs, computer software and architectural designs. A business, for instance, might want a copyright to protect its training manual. Original works on a website (such as writings, artwork or photos) may be copyrighted. Copyright law does not protect domain names; instead, the nonprofit Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbershandles domain name system management. The fee for a basic copyright registration is $45 when you submit a paper application, or you can lower that fee by filing through the U.S. Copyright Office’s online system for $35. Keep in mind that if you plan on selling or distributing your products abroad, you should consider filing with those countries’ intellectual property protection authorities in addition to those in the United States. Write to Colleen DeBaise at colleen.debaise@wsj.com

By Robin Lasher

For online meetings, presentations and training, GoToMeeting has been a favorite of mine for several years. Using either the VOIP or conference call options, you can meet on the fly with up to 15 people. Since we cover four counties, I’ve also used it to meet with clients when time and distance presents a problem. One feature I really like is the ability to record a meeting in a Windows Media File when I create a step-by-step tutorial.

There’s a new utility that just launched, LogMeIn Express BETA, which is currently free for both personal and commercial use. It’s so simple to use that you just about don’t need instructions. After a quick download of a small app, you can send a 12 digit code to someone else and begin sharing your screen immediately. There is also an easy to use chat feature.  LogMeIn is best known for its remote control utility that lets you access a PC or MAC from any other computer with an Internet connection. For personal use, check out the free version.

By Daniel Michaels LONDON—The airline industry is struggling, and so is magazine publishing, but a British company is profiting by combining the two.Ink Publishing (Holdings) Ltd. in recent years has become the world’s biggest producer of in-flight magazines, handling 40 titles for carriers from 17 countries. Its customers range from Ireland’s budget carrier Ryanair Holdings PLC to Bahrain’s upscale Gulf Air. This year, closely held Ink added UAL Corp.’s United Airlines and Air France-KLM SA to its stable.In-flight publishing is an unusual corner of the magazine world. Airline titles have minimal marketing or distribution costs, and readership comes from passenger traffic. Most airlines use outside publishers to produce their magazines and receive a fee in return. Although air traffic has dipped world-wide over the past year, industry officials predict it eventually will resume long-term annual growth of around 4%.”There’s always a carrier somewhere that’s growing,” says Ink Chief Executive Jeffrey O’Rourke.Like most other airline-magazine publishers, Ink bears all the costs of producing the magazines and pays airlines an amount tied to passenger traffic and the carriers’ markets. Ink, in turn, gets the revenue that comes from selling ads.London-based Ink posted after-tax profit of £2.4 million ($4 million) on revenue of £25.3 million for the year through June 30, 2008. For the latest year Mr. O’Rourke projects Ink will show nearly a 10% increase in revenue but a fall in profit because of the recession and expansion costs.Mr. O’Rourke and other in-flight publishers say ad revenue in the sector dropped last year due to the recession but is rebounding now. Data from the Magazine Publishers of America, a trade group, indicate that titles for U.S.-based airlines have suffered less than U.S. magazines overall and much less than the up-market periodicals, such as business and travel magazines, that target the type of readers who fly frequently.The challenge, Mr. O’Rourke says, is to convince advertisers that in-flight magazines are different from slumping mainstream periodicals because the readership is relatively affluent and still increasing. Airplanes also limit distractions. “You have very few places with such a captive audience,” says Tony Cervone, chief communications officer at United Airlines. Even with seat-back entertainment and wireless Internet service becoming standard, he says, passengers must unplug during take-off and landing.More than 80% of U.S. passengers read the magazines airlines place in front of them, says Craig Waller, chief marketing and sales officer at Pace Communications Inc., a publisher in Greensboro, N.C., that handles monthlies for Southwest Airlines Co. and US Airways Group Inc. Readers average around 30 minutes a flight with the magazines, according to Arbitron Inc., which conducted the survey for Pace.
Jorge Irizar, chief executive of media buyer Havas Media International in Paris, says that while the quality of in-flight magazines varies widely, their upscale, captive readership appeals to advertisers, particularly luxury-goods makers targeting men. “The number of upscale men’s magazines is very limited,” he says.The magazines for all six major U.S. carriers are still profitable, although less so than last year, estimates Diane Pohly, whose Pohly Co. in Boston publishes Continental Airlines Inc.’s magazine.Like Pace and Pohly, most in-flight publishers handle just one or two titles because airlines want the magazines to have distinct personalities. That forces Ink to hire an editor for each magazine to obtain unique content from freelance writers.Ink encourages its editors to be creative, although one pushed too far recently. A fashion spread for easyJet PLC’s November magazine shot at Berlin’s Holocaust Memorial sparked criticism it was in poor taste, forcing the British budget carrier to withdraw the magazine and issue an apology. Mr. O’Rourke called the feature “an inappropriate lapse in judgment by our editor.” Mr. O’Rourke, a 38-year-old Oregon native who has lived in Hong Kong and Europe, says Ink’s efficiency comes from running many titles from each of its five offices, sharing overhead expenses and developing a common culture of selling ads across borders. Ink staff members speak 13 languages to sell advertising in 120 countries, he says. Because markets differ among airlines, there isn’t extensive ad overlap across Ink’s titles.”A lot of companies can produce a good magazine, but not a lot can sell ads well in many countries,” says Mr. O’Rourke. KLM media manager Frederic van Nierop says Ink’s ability to tap global markets attracted the Dutch carrier. Its Holland Herald is edited by a local publisher, but KLM in September shifted ad sales to Ink.Mr. Waller, at Pace, says other publishers are watching the British company. “They’ve done a great job editorially,” he says. “On the sales side, time will tell.” He says Pace, which lost United’s Hemispheres magazine to Ink, is moving toward other niches of the custom-publishing market, such as printing periodicals for cities. “This airline business is tough to make a living in.”Mr. O’Rourke says Ink’s global breadth in airline titles gives it an advantage over Pace because U.S. in-flight magazines have typically been more downmarket than those in Europe and Asia. Indeed, Ink is trying to push Hemispheres toward more upscale advertisers, he says.United’s Mr. Cervone says Ink needs “to be careful they don’t spread themselves too thin” by handling so many titles but that the carrier is satisfied so far.Ink’s makeover of Hemispheres has received a boost from troubles in mainstream print media, enjoying the buyer’s market for seasoned writers, editors and art directors leaving magazines that are cutting costs or shutting down. Aaron Gell, whom Ink hired to supervise United’s monthly, ran the short-lived magazine Radar, and his art director worked at former movie monthly, Premiere.His team’s background in “fighting for attention” on newsstands is helping to make Hemispheres more vital, says Mr. Gell, who admits he rarely looked at in-flight magazines before.”I don’t think any of us were necessarily thinking we’d be doing this, but the newsstand-magazine business is pretty rough now,” he says. Write to Daniel Michaels at daniel.michaels@wsj.com