A three-session free lunch-and-learn program of the Blue Ridge Community and Technical College
Noon to 1:30
September 14th, October 18th, and November 16th
Presented by Professor Jon M. Garon, Director, Intellectual Property, Cybersecurity, and Technology Law program at Nova Southeastern University Shepard Broad College of Law
In a series of three online workshops, Professor Garon will help small business owners, entrepreneurs, and start-ups develop the skills and knowledge to utilize patents, trademarks, copyrights, trade secrets, and publicity rights to help sustain and promote their businesses. All sessions are free and open to the public.
The three sessions are based on Professor Garon’s text, The Entrepreneur’s Intellectual Property & Business Handbook (2d Ed. 2018), which is provided for free in electronic form. Participants can attend any or all of the sessions.
Session 1: Understanding Intellectual Property for the Emerging Business. This session will provide an overview of patent, trademark, copyright, trade secret, and publicity rights as they apply in the small and emerging business sector. While all five areas of intellectual property will be briefly discussed, the emphasis will focus on the use of trademark, trade secret, and copyright which are a much lower-cost alternative than patents to create and maintain exclusive business strategies that help the enterprise succeed in the competitive business environment.
Session 2: Integrating IP into Business Planning. Whether an entrepreneur creates an elaborate business plan or relies on lean start-up business case, that business needs to have a strategy to stand out from the competition. This session integrates lean start-up planning strategies with the “Own It Method” of business differentiation to help entrepreneurs create businesses that can be highly relevant to their customers while offering exclusive value for their stakeholders.
Session 3: Developing Essential Contracts to Protect the Small Business. This session focuses on the agreements typically used by small businesses to be sure that those arrangements promote the best use of confidentiality, cyber security, intellectual property rights management, and more. Business owners often sign nondisclosure agreements, employment contracts, financing arrangements, leases, and other significant contracts without addressing the key risks that these contracts can sometimes create for their companies. Using the perspective of intellectual property, customer privacy, and security, this session identifies the best practices to follow and key pitfalls to avoid.
This series will be ideal for new and existing small businesses and entrepreneurs. It will cover an intellectual property overview for students, faculty and businesses, and will then focus in more detail on types of intellectual property, such as copyrights, patents, trademarks, and trade secrets. Other topics will include ownership and licensing approaches for the entrepreneur, technology commercialization, privacy and security basics, as well as non-disclosure and other key agreements.
The seminar will be conducted by Jon M. Garon, nationally recognized legal expert in the field of intellectual property and privacy law. Professor Garon is the Director of the Intellectual Property, Cybersecurity, and Technology Law program at Nova Southeastern University Shepard Broad College of Law, teaching Constitutional Law, Contracts, Privacy Law, Entertainment Law, Intellectual Property Law and many other courses. He has published over 60 books, book chapters, and academic articles, and he has presented at more than 300 programs.