One of the goals of Gateway CEO is to introduce students to all aspects of entrepreneurship. We are so thankful to Chris Carroll of The Small Patent Law Group for spending time with students sharing the world of Intellectual Property. As the journals came in this week, it was really neat to hear the reflections on this guest speaker. For most students, this was an introduction to a topic that they were not familiar with in any capacity. This was so valuable as these students begin to launch their businesses and learn about the world of legally protecting ideas, logos and trade secrets! Here are a few highlights of the information Chris shared -
- Patents – protect inventions. Utility or Design - depending on what they choose is most valuable to protect.
- Trademarks – protect names, logos, color arrangements, etc. (“marks”) that associate goods/services with provider. Common law protections.
- Copyrights – protect expression of an idea/concept.
- Trade Secrets – protect formulas, recipes, know-how, etc. that cannot be reverse engineered. Students were amazed at the story of Coca-Cola.

Thank you for giving such valuable insight to our Gateway CEO students!