Like many people here I am not a natural born entrepreneur. I have to build myself up, listen to audiobooks/podcasts, do self development stuff, journaling and so on. I really like the posts of @Andy Black and @AndrewNC btw which also fall into this category for me.
Once in a while I pickup some phrases or even come up with them myself, that I'd like to print on a t-shirt, which I could then wear e.g. during my workouts. That gave me the idea: Hey, if I would buy a shirt that says BE SIGNIFICANT, maybe somebody else would want one as well. I did some quick research and figured I'll start out with a spreadshirt shop. There I could design the shirts, they would do all the fulfillment. I'd only get a small commission, but I thought it would be an easy way to start and try all the Internet Marketing instruments like SEO, affiliate links and so on. I don't expect that to be Fastlane, more like an experiment. If it should take off, I can replace the backbone with something more profitable than spreadshirt commissions.
Anyhow - I was a little worried, I'd might run into Trademark or Copyright Issues with some phrases or statements. It is pretty pretty obvious that you can't use Nike's JUST DO IT. I checked the Trademark Electronic Search System (TESS) - which btw. looks like many government sites like designed 15-20 years ago - for some phrases, that I planned to use. And guess what - somebody owns a trademark to them. BE SIGNIFICANT trademarked. BE THE BEST VERSION OF YOU trademarked. Turns out 2/3 of the phrases I planned to use are trademarked. Ok, so I could still go with the last 1 / 3, right?
But what if somebody trademarks one of these phrases and then sues the hell out of me? Is that possible or even likely?
Trademarking them myself is not an option, because I don't expect every phrase to be so successful, that it is worth several hundred $ for registering the trademark. With a $2.50 commission you'd have to sell a lot of shirts, before you are out of the red.
So what to do? Do I dump the idea? Or do I fear something that is pretty unlikely to happen?
Once in a while I pickup some phrases or even come up with them myself, that I'd like to print on a t-shirt, which I could then wear e.g. during my workouts. That gave me the idea: Hey, if I would buy a shirt that says BE SIGNIFICANT, maybe somebody else would want one as well. I did some quick research and figured I'll start out with a spreadshirt shop. There I could design the shirts, they would do all the fulfillment. I'd only get a small commission, but I thought it would be an easy way to start and try all the Internet Marketing instruments like SEO, affiliate links and so on. I don't expect that to be Fastlane, more like an experiment. If it should take off, I can replace the backbone with something more profitable than spreadshirt commissions.
Anyhow - I was a little worried, I'd might run into Trademark or Copyright Issues with some phrases or statements. It is pretty pretty obvious that you can't use Nike's JUST DO IT. I checked the Trademark Electronic Search System (TESS) - which btw. looks like many government sites like designed 15-20 years ago - for some phrases, that I planned to use. And guess what - somebody owns a trademark to them. BE SIGNIFICANT trademarked. BE THE BEST VERSION OF YOU trademarked. Turns out 2/3 of the phrases I planned to use are trademarked. Ok, so I could still go with the last 1 / 3, right?
But what if somebody trademarks one of these phrases and then sues the hell out of me? Is that possible or even likely?
Trademarking them myself is not an option, because I don't expect every phrase to be so successful, that it is worth several hundred $ for registering the trademark. With a $2.50 commission you'd have to sell a lot of shirts, before you are out of the red.
So what to do? Do I dump the idea? Or do I fear something that is pretty unlikely to happen?
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