Texas State University’s RampCorp program for women entrepreneurs is now accepting applications for its program in the following cities:

• Dallas
• El Paso
• Austin
• San Antonio

RampCorp provides assistance for women who want to build scalable technology companies.

RampCorp provides extensive coaching and support from experienced women entrepreneurs.

The RampCorp curriculum provides extensive information to help you understand what you need to do to be successful.

For more information go to The RampCorp Site

It’s a great example of women helping women!

In response to my comments about the dearth of women in VC Jason Mendelson’s video, here is an interview Jason sent me discussing the Foundry Group’s attitude toward investing in companies by women entrepreneurs.

Thanks. Jason. It’s great to see open-mindedness in any VC group.

My old law school friend, VC Jason Mendelson and his partner Brad Feld of the Foundry Group have just released a new book:

Venture Deals: Be Smarter than Your Lawyer and Venture Capitalist

Jason also released a hilarious music video, “I’m a VC.”

Despite looking somewhat crazy in the video, Jason (with the white wig) is really a smart and pragmatic guy.

I can vouch for the fact that he really has a law degree and practiced corporate law in Silicon Valley before heading to the mountains of Colorado.

If you are seeking VC funding and you want to get insight into the legal issues of funding, buy Jason’s book.  If you want a good laugh, watch his video.

Jason really knows what he is talking about despite the goofy wig.

Terry Chase Hazell, the Director of Texas State’s women entrepreneur program RampCorp, Heather Schafer, IP attorney and adjunct professor at Chicago Kent Law School, and myself, Jill Hubbard Bowman, an IP attorney and former women’s studies instructor at the University of Michigan, are writing and book called housework: A Women Entrepreneur’s Strategic Guide to Intellectual Property. The book will describe how to build a House of IP that will protect the company’s key IP assets. Hence, the use of the term “housework” to describe the strategic work that women entrepreneurs need to do to build a valuable, scalable companies.

Women entrepreneurs face unique and specific obstacles to scaling their companies including lack of funding and lack of an IP strategy that would make their companies more attractive to investors.  We are creating materials to help women create a strategy to overcome these specific hurdles.

As part of that effort, Heather and I are launching a companion class that will use the draft materials based on the book. We are also providing individual legal counsel to help class participants create their strategic plans and we are including our flat fee founder’s packages of contracts for startups.

The dates of the class have been pushed back.  It will start on Sunday September 11, 2011.

Here is the gist, email me at bowmanlaw[at]me.com to get the price and further details of what is included.

House: work, A Woman Entrepreneur’s Strategic Guide to Intellectual Property

Taught by myself, Jill Hubbard Bowman, and Heather Schafer, it will be an eight week program based on our pending book.

Class Dates: September 11-October 30, 2011

Class Times:  Sunday evenings from 5:30-7:00 (CT)/7:30-9:00(PT)/6:30-8:00(ET)

The House:work course will teach women founders:

• Critical strategies for designing a House of IP and getting the right type of protection
• The basics of the legal pillars for their IP House: trademarks, trade secrets, patents, copyrights
• How to ensure that the company owns the IP created for it
• How to survive IP due diligence by investors with flying colors

Heather and I will also provide individual counseling sessions for each participant to help you create your specific plan based on your business.

At the conclusion of the class, each woman will have a detailed IP strategy for the company and a better understanding of how to protect the company’s IP as the company grows and how not to make big dollar legal IP mistakes.

APPLY AT:  https://adobeformscentral.com/?f=8MJkemAmmk*VJBLQd3BY4g

The enrollment for this class is very limited.   We are seeking a few highly motivated, women entrepreneurs who really want to learn, build scalable companies, and get major investment. The class will be a serious commitment and involve on-going reading, homework and tests. We also plan on making it fun and we promise we won’t use sports analogies.  Our materials are women-centered and very unique in the world of IP law.  The class will be recorded so that participants can listen to the class for review or in the case of an absence.

To find out if you are planning on building a scalable company read this post about scalable business models.

If you have questions, you can also call me at 312.218.6411.  Jill Hubbard Bowman, publisher IPLawForStartups.com.

Duh.  It may seem like a no-brainer.

If people create stuff — business plans, marketing materials, graphics, logo, website, software, prototypes, products, written works, photographs — specifically for your startup company, of course the startup owns the intellectual property rights.  Right?

Maybe.

You may be unpleasantly surprised by the legal answer.

The next four posts will explain the basics of IP ownership and answer the following questions:

• Does the Startup Own the IP Rights To Work Created by the Founders?
• Does the Startup Own the IP Rights to Work Created by Independent Contractors?
• Does the Startup Own the IP Rights to Work Created by Employees?
• Does the Startup Own the IP Rights To Its Website?

If you’re an entrepreneur or a major shareholder in a startup and want to protect the startup’s value, stay tuned to learn the answers.

Super business coach and author Pam Slim has just launched a new, inner community at EscapeFromCubicleNation.com to support entrepreneurs. She has enlisted a group of “Trusted Advisors,” including myself, to provide content and information specific for entrepreneurs.  It is an amazing group including strategists, experienced entrepreneurs, social media coaches, and technologists.  She threw in a couple of lawyers for good measure.

I’ve known Pam for several years and she is a generous and inspiring person who is committed to helping entrepreneurs succeed.  I love her blog and book titled, Escape From Cubicle Nation.   I’m sure  the new community will be  helpful, supportive, and inspiring as well.

Great job Pam!

As a lawyer who drafts a lot of contracts, I see them all the time:  bizarre, insane, wack-a-doodle contracts that are downloaded from God-knows-where.

I frequently see convoluted contracts when a client or a potential client has hit a snag and become embroiled in a dispute with their customer.

Many of these mis-mashed, mis-matched contracts do not reflect the terms of the deal between the parties.

Sometimes the entrepreneurs really thought their contract was fine – even though the contract left out major deal terms or didn’t really match what the deal eventually turned into.

Sometimes the entrepreneurs knew their contracts were crap and were mildly concerned.  But they thought the contracts were good enough — until the company tried to enforce the contracts or until the company found out the contracts didn’t do what they wanted the contracts to do, like transfer intellectual property rights or protect the company from wild liability claims.

Other intrepid entrepreneurs don’t care what their contracts actually say or mean.  Their cavalier attitude toward contracts and their customers is simple:

“Sign this piece of paper and give me the money.”

But a bad contract is often worse than no contract.

A bad contract that bears little resemblance to the actual terms of the deal can hurt a company on many levels – not even considering the appalling lack of legal protection mismatched contracts usually provide. (And don’t get me started on how a really bizarre contract can make a company look incompetent and idiotic.)

Do you realize that a contract legally binds your company to do what its says you will do?

Watch out for the words “shall” or “will”.  These words after your Company name indicate that your company has a legal obligation to perform the description that follows.

Seriously, what have you obligated your company to do?  Are you planning on doing it?

If you are using a contract with your customers and clients, it is wise to read all of the words of the contract carefully.  Make sure you understand what you are obligated to do.

Moreover, make sure that your clients are obligated to do what you need them to do — make sure the contract says that the Customer  “shall” pay you the money.

Jill Hubbard Bowman is an attorney who represents smart startups who want to protect the value of their company and grow their business by using the strategic use of intellectual property.  Jill can be reached at hubbardbowman [at] me.com.

I’m excited to announce that Heather N. Schafer, an intellectual property attorney in Chicago has joined me as a main editor and publisher of IP Law For Startups.

Heather N. Schafer

Heather is a  highly creative patent attorney who is adept at helping entrepreneurs obtain patent protection for their inventions.  Heather is also skilled in all types of intellectual property licensing and she is an expert in government contract issues  including NSF, NIH, DOE, DOD and ARRA funding.

Heather loves to teach and share information.  She has served as adjunct faculty for Chicago-Kent College of Law since 2006.

We are working on some exciting educational projects for entrepreneurs that will launch in the next few months.

See Heather’s full bio.  Heather can be reached by email at HeatherNSchafer[at]gmail.com.

Stay tuned for great posts and helpful information about intellectual property law from Heather.  Read Heather’s post on Patent Myths.

Sorry for the gap in posts.  I’ve been in the Pacific Northwest watching killer whales.  Although I’m still on vacation, I wanted to quickly answer a question by a reader in the North who wondered:

Why would a Website owner want to require a Website user to agree to a license in a contract regarding copyrighted material?

Isn’t statutory copyright protection enough?

Does a license provide a legal remedy in addition to copyright infringement?

Good questions.  A Website owner may want to require users to agree to a contract that includes a restricted content license because of litigation procedures.

If a Website user copied copyrighted material in violation of the copyright statute and in breach of the licensing terms of the Website’s on-line contract, the Website owner would have at least two causes of action in a lawsuit:  copyright infringement and breach of contract.

Why would a plaintiff want two causes of action in a lawsuit?

The elements of proof, required evidence, and damages are different for copyright infringement and breach of a specific contract.

For a breach of a contract:

• It’s easy to sue for a breach of contract.
• A contract can dictate where the litigation occurs.
• By agreeing to a contract, a user can agree to submit to jurisdiction in a remote court where the Website owner resides.
• A contract can also require attorneys’ fees for the prevailing party in a lawsuit for breach of contract.

In contrast, for litigation for copyright infringement:

• A federal copyright registration is required before a plaintiff can file a lawsuit for copyright infringement.
• Statutory damages and attorneys’ fees are only available if the copyright to the work was registered within 3 months of publication and before infringement.  Many companies don’t register their works in time and statutory remedies are not an option.

Although in the end you usually won’t get more total damages for multiple causes of action (and damages experts are expensive because the calculation can get complicated), multiple causes of action can help a Website owner win its case.

Google won a huge victory last week when a federal judge decided that Google was not liable for copyright infringement perpetrated by its YouTube Users.

In 1996, Viacom, the owner of Paramount Pictures and MTV Networks, filed a $1 billion lawsuit against Google alleging that thousands of videos on YouTube violated its copyrights.

Google fought back asserting that as a service provider it was entitled to the safe harbor protection of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (“DMCA”) and therefore not liable for copyright violations of YouTube users.  Google asserted that it had acted expeditiously and removed allegedly infringing materials when notified of the specific material by the copyright owner as required by the DMCA.

Viacom asserted that Google was not entitled to the DMCA safe harbor because it knew that material infringing Viacom’s copyrights was posted on YouTube.

The critical issue was whether Google had met the DMCA’s safe harbor requirements:

Did Google’s general knowledge of possible infringement negate  protection?

Courts have been very clear regarding the necessity of strict compliance with the DMCA’s requirements.  For a service provider to qualify for safe harbor protection, the service provider must take a variety of actions including:

• designating an agent with the Copyright Office;
• providing and following a copyright infringement notification/take down procedure; and
• a counter-notification procedure.

In general the DMCA states that “A service provider shall not be liable for monetary relief . . .for infringement of copyright . .if the service provider

(A)(i) does not have actual knowledge that the material or an activity using the material on the system or network is infringing;

(ii) in the absence of such actual knowledge, is not aware of facts or circumstances from which infringing activity is apparent; or

(iii) upon obtaining such knowledge or awareness, acts expeditiously to remove, or disable access to, the material;”

The judge decided that the phrases above meant more than general knowledge of the prevalence of infringement.  They meant “specific and identifiable infringements of particular individual items.”  In short, Google had a safe harbor.  The burden to identify and notify the service provider of alleged infringement is on the copyright owner.

The bottom line is that service providers don’t have to actively monitor their sites for infringing content.  They may presume user material is not infringing unless notified otherwise.  If they follow the DMCA guidelines and act promptly to take down material alleged to be infringing, they may have protection from claims of big damages.