Why is it critical to create online income with your intellectual property?

Most people think IP is extremely complicated because it can involve patents, trademarks, copyrights and trade secrets. While IP certainly can encompass those legal constructs, we believe the conversation needs to begin in a much simpler format. According to the American Heritage Dictionary, intellectual property (IP) is defined as ‘an idea that has commercial value.’

There is a growing trend in the marketplace to encourage people to simply focus on turning their ideas into cash — an all out massive action plan to throw caution to the wind and just figure it out. Rather than encouraging you to quickly assimilate multiple strategies and all the latest techniques on your own, we prefer to combine your strengths with our strategies and teamwork. Stratworx encourages our members to systematically turn their IP into Income, Profit and Equity.

We believe once you have a clear, market based assessment of your ideas, you need to use one of most effective strategies to prove your thesis…online marketing. I realize this isn’t exactly a secret, but what is not well known is how to use a specific sequence to validate your ideas from the market’s perspective.

One of the reasons online marketing is so helpful is because the hard costs to test ideas are a fraction of typical offline expenses. For example, using a Google Adwords campaign, you can use a defined budget, specific key words and a variety of offers to determine what products and services people are looking to buy. Once you have this data, you can refine your idea into market centric IP which can then be formulated into a product series, and a launch strategy.

The internet is a powerful tool, but it can be overwhelming if you are not clear on exactly what to do. Once you implement an effective online strategy you can begin to develop new income streams which can actively fund your market research. This is a ’secret’ that most people miss. It’s not the huge money of mega, massive, get rich quick wealth of free online money…it’s the consistent, valuable market information which begins to fund your IP Development.

The internet and specifically online marketing is a huge advantage…if you use it wisely. Here’s to the future!

Cheers,

Steve

Steve Olds
Founder and CEO
www.STRATWORX.com

The New Small Business Model

In this time of financial uncertainty, the predictable chorus of business opportunity pitches is accelerating. We are facing a challenging scenario as people begin to wonder how secure their jobs are, how long their paychecks will last and if their benefits will continue. Just like past decades, when the economy is questionable, people frequently pursue part time small business efforts. Sometimes they begin by working from home with a goal to replace their full time income or at least to supplement their spouse’s paycheck.

Here’s the real question. How often do those part time business opportunities produce real results that translate into long term income, profit and equity?

Rarely.

Unfortunately, what often happens is a temporary increase in enthusiasm followed by a large expenditure of cash or credit to buy inventory or a ’system’ followed by failure, pain and bewilderment.

Does it mean the business opportunity is bad or deceptive? Not necessarily. However, in my experience, many well intentioned business opportunity marketers whet the appetite with upside potential, but frequently don’t explain to prospective small business owners how to manage expectations.

The old adage — if it sounds too good to be true, it usually is — still holds true.

The key to successful business opportunities in this fast-paced, global market is to have a clear understanding of the business model and to know precisely what you need to do. You must have a product or service that has value in the marketplace. You must have a solid strategy to generate prospects and purchasers for the goods. You must be able to effectively fulfill your promise to the customer… and do it all while generating a profit.

Yet, the numbers for failed small businesses are still as high as they’ve ever been. One big reason — easy access to credit — has masked the need to understand the fundamentals listed above. Fundamentals are fundamentals for a reason.

Another major reason for solo-entrepreneurial failure is because there is a lot to learn about internet marketing, which is often pitched as a simple, easy way to create cash while you sleep. This can be a fantastic channel to test marketing ideas and create high margin digital products, but there is much more to a business than simply internet marketing.

The best long-term strategy to create small business success in this web based economy is to use a new model. The new small business model should focus on your strengths — skills that are aligned with your innermost passion. Couple your strengths with proven strategies that produce results and leverage your time. Wrap your strengths and strategies in a synergistic environment so you can serve others while collaborating with those who can assist you.

The days of flying solo and succeeding with a high degree of probability are over.

The new small business model must help you focus on your strengths, use proven strategies, and support you with team synergy!

Cheers,

Steve

Steve Olds
Founder and CEO
www.STRATWORX.com

Intellectual Property in the News

At STRATWORX we like to keep the legal, dry part of intellectual
property to a minimum. But we keep an eye on changes in IP law
that impacts our clients’ business strategy. You should know about
some changes on the horizon that will affect your business.So, we
are dedicating our January 2008 issue to this topic.

Over the last several months, we have been working with our
IP attorney, Matt Latimer on evaluating and designing the patent
application for our IP Wealth Systemâ„¢.

The US Patent and Trademark Office may be changing the way it does
business depending on the success or failure of The Patent Reform
Act of 2007. These potential changes may substantially change patent
law and the value, specifically equity value, of your patents.

Here are three highlights you should be aware of in case your
pursuit of intellectual property points toward filing a patent.

- The first issue regards an “apportionment of damages” provision
that weakens the economic value of patents. In simple terms this
limits the damages that can be acquired from those who infringe
on your patent. If violators aren’t concerned about the hefty
damages that may be incurred from stealing your ideas, then what’s
the true value of the patent? It’s a question worth asking.

- The second issue makes it easier to file post-grant oppositions
which means every time someone, especially big companies with deep
pockets, challenges your patent in court, you have to defend it
otherwise you essentially abandon your patent. This would seemingly
limit the incentive to create new inventions because the ability
to protect them would be challenging.

- The third concern is the proposal to change the unique American
“first-to-invent” system to the European type “first-to-file”
process. In effect this puts small business owners and medium size
companies at a disadvantage because of the time and effort it takes
to prepare and fund a patent filing. Again it would seem large
companies with their big legal staffs could be the beneficiaries
of this change.

What’s the bottom line?

Get good advice on the value of pursuing patent protection. In many
cases there is specific marketing value to having a product that is
‘patent pending.’ Given most applications are not even looked at for
a year to 18 months, even if the patent application is denied, the
market value of the pending status may be worth the preparation.
Good discussion with your marketing team, budget director and attorney.

Our discussion barely scratches the surface of the topic and if you
like legalese you can click on this link US Patent and Trademark Office
for all the details.

Hope you found this helpful.

Cheers,

Steve

Steve Olds
Founder and CEO
www.STRATWORX.com