In a 3-minute conversation with intellectual property attorney LaConya Murray, David Allred, Stamp's Strategy Director, discusses the difference between trademarks and copyrights.

Video Transcript

David: As we've talked, LaConya, over time, you hear me using trademark and copyright and kind of interchangeably. And you have always pulled me to the side and said "okay those are different". So educate me, educate our viewer on the difference.

LaConya: And a lot of people get them, they use them interchangeably because they're both forms of intellectual property which is you know, property from the mind. But when you think about trademarks, we're thinking about trade in trade in commerce, we're thinking about products goods and services. So trademarks protect brand identifiers that help consumers readily identify the source of a good or service. So trade, commerce, trademark, I'm trying to make it easier for the audience to kind of remember, but when you think about trademarks that's what you want to think about. So trademarks for business owners they look like logos. They look like slogans. Your trade name. Colors, think UPS or Tiffany blue. Sound, the Pillsbury doughboy when he giggles. That's the trademark. Or the opening sound of the stock market, that's a trademark. Even smells can be trademarked if it's unique, right. Copyrights, on the other hand, which are still a form of intellectual property, they protect original work that are in a fixed tangible form. So when we think about copyright, so now we're thinking about we're thinking about your marketing campaign. So when you write copy like your sales copy, that can be protected by copyrights. I've actually had a salesman come to me he said, "I came up with this great sales letter and now someone from another car dealership is trying to use it". And so we copyrighted it. And now they can't do that because that is it's copy. It's original. There's something creative. So when we think about copy we think about how you know marketing pamphlets all those written words can be protected. If your logo is creative not just word-based, then it can also be protected because it's an original work in a fixed tangible form. Even your this podcast is protected by copyrights. Because it's an original work in a fixed tangible form. So hopefully that helps like tell the difference between the trademarks and the copyrights.

David: Yeah and I've heard you actually do that as a presentation and it's helpful. And I really like that association used in trade just to help me frame it. Because uh you know I do use it interchangeably. But that's the other reason that we send clients to you. Because you know what we want to accomplish and you know the right things to do to protect. And maybe you can do both, as you just said, to protect something you've come up with. But that's why there are experts out there just like you.