========================================== Business Marketing Bulletin ========================================== December 18, 2007, Issue #81 Terri Seymour, Publisher http://www.seymourproducts.com mailto:terri@seymourproducts.com © 2007 All Rights Reserved Worldwide ========================================== In This Issue ========================================== 1. Top Sponsor Ads 2. Privacy Policy 3. What's New? (X-tra Special Christmas Special Offer) 4. Feedback 5. Freebies & Biz Helpers 6. eCommerce Marketing Tip 7. Feature Ad 8. Resource-A-Day 9. Article: Copyrights, Trademarks and Patents, Oh My! 10. Feature Ad 11. This 'n That - Little Bit of Everything! 12. Subscription Management & Contact Info ========================================== Top Sponsor Ads ========================================== Immediate openings for top sponsor ads! Order now and reserve your date for the New Year! http://www.seymourproducts.com/newsletter/advertise.shtml *************************** Free Download - eBay Workshop Collection The workshop titles included in the ebook are... *From Hobby to Home Business *How to Compete in a Crowded Market *Understanding the Basics to Importing Physical Products to Sell.........and much more! You can download it for free here: http://www.worldwidebrands.com/wwb/kh_freeebookWorkshops.asp?kbid=1028 ********** ATTENTION ********** You are receiving this newsletter because you subscribed to it. As a subscriber you have acknowledged that there will be both in-house and third party advertising as part of our content. This allows BMB to remain free. If you would like to be removed from this list, please see instructions at the end of this newsletter. Seymour Products values your privacy. http://www.seymourproducts.com/privacy.shtml Seymour Products is hosted by ICDSoft Hosting. No set-up fees, 1000 MB of space, $72 per year, plus numerous features! Incredible support system...minutes, not hours! You have a bigger plan option as well. http://www.icdsoft.com/?aff=terriseymour ========================================== What’s New? ========================================== Hello everyone and welcome new subscribers, Thank you for joining us here at the Bulletin. Next Tuesday, as you know, is Christmas day so there will be no issue sent out next week. We will resume the Bulletin as usual on Tuesday, Jan. 1, 2008! I want to wish each and everyone of you a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. We hope to help even more people start their own successful e-business in 2008 than we did in 2007. May all your Christmas wishes and all your hopes and dreams for the New Year come true! Thank you for being a part of Seymour Products. We very much appreciate all of you. Thank you! In the News Google Working on Internet Encyclopedia http://www.umbrellanews.com/story/read/D8THGJQ80 New Ebooks this Week: Resell Ebooks Just $1.00 Each! Folklore as a Historical Science (education & homeschool) The e-Entrepreneuer Success Mindset (online & home biz) Mastering the Plan Mechanics (online & home biz) Guide to Successful Online Freelancing (online & home biz) 10 Most Common Ezine Publishing Mistakes (blogs/ezines) Search Engine Approach (int marketing) A Guide to Healthy Living (health & fitness) RSS Traffic Detonator (software & scripts) A Guide to Modern Yoga (health & fitness)] Transitionz (software & scripts) Life & Adv. of Nicolas Nickleby (classic) Autobiography of Buffalo Bill (education) 11 Steps to Subscription Success (int marketing) Zero to Fifty in 30 Days (online home biz) Instant CD Products (online home biz) Field & Garden Vegetables of America (yard & garden) Life & Adv. of Santa Claus (holiday/seasonal) Golden Moments- Bright Stories for Young Folks (children) The Priest, the Woman & the Confessional (religion) How to Write Clearly (education) http://www.seymourproducts.com/ebooks-resell **Weekly Subscriber Special** X-tra Special Christmas Special We would like to offer you an opportunity to have your own successful ebook business for the New Year! We do offer several money-saving packages but we would like to make this Special One Time Offer for Christmas. http://www.seymourproducts.com/ebooks-resell/view_item.php?ItemID=926 http://www.seymourproducts.com/ebooks-resell/view_item.php?ItemID=301 We would like to offer you all 100+ ebooks on the above two pages, plus your own ebook store for just $25.00! Even if you have a store already, this is an outstanding chance to add a lot of variety to your inventory. All you need to do to take advantage of this x-tra special offer is paypal me the payment of $25 to terri@seymourproducts.com and I will send you the link for both of these packages! Order now because we will not offer this deal again. Offer good only from Tuesday Dec. 18, 2007 through Thursday, Dec. 20, 2007. NOTE: New eBooks listed above are not eligible for Weekly Subscriber Specials. Join the Seymour Products Trivia Challenge! Find the hidden trivia question and be the third person to send in the correct answer for a free feature ad in next week's issue of the Business Marketing Bulletin. Send your answer to mailto:terri@seymourproducts.com?subject=answer Congratulations to Leah Stanford for being last week's trivia challenge winner. Last week’s Q: Who won Favorite Actor in the First Annual People's Choice Awards in 1975? Last Week’s A: John Wayne Join in the fun and try to win a free feature ad. Good luck all! If you know anyone who could benefit from this ezine, please feel free to forward them a copy in its entirety. Thank you. If you would like to advertise in the BMB, please visit: http://www.seymourproducts.com/newsletter/advertise.shtml for more information. Advertising prices are as low as $2.00. I am also looking for ad swaps from other ezine publishers. BMB goes out to 728 subscribers. ========================================== Feedback ========================================== Please send in your comments, suggestions, questions, etc to mailto:terri@seymourproducts.com?subject=feedback We appreciate all feedback, good or bad! Thanks Terri, for letting me use your articles, they are great :) * Teresa Please send in your comments, fgood or bad. We appreciate all input. ========================================== Freebies & Biz Helpers ========================================== Directory of Article Directories http://www.arcanaweb.com/resources/article-directories.html ****** Set up your own blog, Free! http://bloghi.com/ ****** Free Download: NameSake A professional CRM designed for simplicity and ease-of-use yet powerful enough to meet many business needs. Unlimited records. Invoices, quotes etc. Can be used for any purpose. http://www.b2ltd.com/databaseplace/content/view/13/28/ ****** Write Better Ads - Do It Free! http://www.WriteBetterAds.com ========================================== eCommerce Marketing Tip ========================================== Tips for Marketing Your eBook Put your ebook in your sigtag along with a free bonus. The free bonus will attract more people and bring in more sales. Use an excerpt from your ebook as an article and submit it to as many directories as possible. Be sure to mention your ebook in your resource box. Read more tips......... http://www.seymourproducts.com/articles/market-ebook.shtml ========================================== Feature Ad ========================================== Are YOUR Ads Making Money? Competition's High but My Prices are Down-To-Earth! Quality, Affordable & Friendly Ad-Writing Services! http://www.freewebs.com/suz1of6/ ========================================== Resource-A-Day ========================================== Today's Resource: "The Truth About Word Of Mouth Promotion - Some Things You Might Not Know http://www.resource-a-day.com/ez/dec/11.html?Terri Join this program for free and earn money as well as getting resources delivered to your inbox everyday! http://www.resource-a-day.net/member/index.cgi?TerriSeymour ========================================== Feature Article ========================================== Copyrights, Trademarks and Patents, Oh My! Understanding Intellectual Property © Kelly Sims 2007 You are a business owner with a web presence. During a routine Google search for your page ranking, you discover something disturbing. There is another company out there with a name very similar to yours and almost identical content on their website. What do you do? Is your company name and website content automatically protected by copyright law? Should you have registered your company name as a trademark? Can you demand that they change their name and dismantle their website immediately? Intellectual Property can be a confusing topic, and one that all business owners should know about. Sadly however, many entrepreneurs simply don't. Intellectual property is in very simple terms an idea that legally belongs to somebody, be they a company or an individual. Only the owner of that idea, or somebody the owner has a legal agreement with can use the idea. Generally, the owner of the idea is usually its creator unless someone paid them to create the idea, in which case the idea's owner is the person who paid for the idea. There are different kinds of intellectual property, but for the purpose of this article, we will focus on copyright, patent and trademark. Patent – A patent protects the creators of new inventions. An invention can include anything from a new product or business method to a recipe. If you decide to patent your invention, there a few things you should know. First, you will need to apply for a patent in every country where you would like your invention to be protected. Secondly, getting a patent is going to cost you a pretty penny. You will have to pay thousands of dollars to patent your idea and it will take a minimum of 2 years (probably more) before you are granted a patent. Also, your precious invention will no longer remain a secret since your patent application will be made public once your application is submitted. If all of this wasn't enough bad news, patent protection generally only lasts for twenty years from the date of your application. Phew! On the up side, once your patent is accepted, you can sue anyone who tries to manufacture or sell your invention. It's worth mentioning here that another method to keep your invention protected is to keep the method of manufacturing it a 'trade secret'. If you choose this process, of course, in order to manufacture your product, you will have to tell somebody. You would have to have anyone who would learn your secret sign a confidentiality agreement. Consult a lawyer if you plan to use this method. Trademark – Trademarks are the marks used to distinguish one company's products or services from another's. They can include a product name, a slogan, and any other mark that is deemed to be unique to a company such as a logo or unique packaging. As a rule, you can't trademark descriptive words, geographical names or a person's name. You also cannot register a business' name. You can however, register part of a name used to identify a product or service. For example "Kellogg's Company" is owner of the "Kellogg's" trademark and the "Rice Krispies" trademark. You cannot register a trademark similar to one that is already in use by another company. Beware; a trademark does not have to be registered in order to prevent others from using it. If a company is using an unregistered trademark in your geographical area, they can still prevent you from using it. You could perform a search in a trademark database and find later that you are using another company's unregistered trademark. If you find another company in a completely different industry using your unregistered trademark, you probably won't be able to do anything about it if they are not your competitors or if they are not in your geographical vicinity. Protection of a registered trademark however, is much stronger than an unregistered one, and once you have a registered trademark, you can prevent competitors from using it, or confusingly similar ones anywhere in the country in which your trademark is registered. Copyright – Any written text, artistic work, or computer program is automatically protected by copyright. Anything you or I write, be it published, online text or unpublished, handwritten text, is copyrighted. Also anything we draw, paint, photograph, film, or compose is also protected by copyright. Copyright can be registered, but it doesn't have to be in order for it to be illegal for individuals to copy someone else's work. Copyright also lasts for an extremely long time. Usually it lasts the duration of the author's life plus fifty years at which point it becomes a part of the public domain and can be used by anyone. Factual information cannot be copyrighted. For example, this article is based on fact. Although you cannot copy my article and claim to have authored it yourself, you can take the facts included in the article and use them in your own written material. If you would like to use a very small portion of someone else's written work, this is usually acceptable as long as you credit the author. Finally, what do you do if someone uses your work without your permission? Your first step should be to contact the individual. You can usually either go to the contact page on the offender's web site or go to WhoIs.com and enter the offender's domain to find contact information. If your initial communication doesn't get results, you should then send a 'cease and desist order'. For sample orders, just perform a search on 'cease and desist orders'. Finally if still no action is taken by the offending party, contact their web host and advise them of the situation and finally, contact search engines and make them aware of the situation. These actions should render the offender's website useless or at the very least give them enough trouble to convince them to remove the copied material. For more information on intellectual property in Canada, visit the Canadian Intellectual Property Office, for the U.S., visit the United States Patent and Trademark Office and for Europe please visit the European Patent Office. About The Author Kelly Sims is a Virtual Assistant and President of Virtually There VA Services. Please visit her website to sign up for her free monthly newsletter providing useful information that enhances and simplifies the lives of busy entrepreneurs. => http://www.virtuallythereva.com . ************** If you would be interested in any of my articles for reprint or reference you can see the complete list at http://www.seymourproducts.com/articles/index.shtml Feel free to use any of the articles you feel are appropriate. Also, if you would like to be added to my personal mailing list for articles only, terri@seymourproducts.com ========================================== Feature Ad ========================================== It's not too early to start dropping a few pounds for the holiday season or New Years event! Curb your appetite & get that needed energy burst to help make you successful! Power Pops with Hoodia. Try one of our Sampler Packs to see what the buzz is all about! At checkout use NC15 for 15% off! http://www.HealthyPops.com ========================================== This ‘n That - A Little Bit of Everything! ========================================== Like horror movies? Visit this site: http://www.best-horror-movies.com/ "I never married because there was no need. I have three pets at home which answer the same purpose as a husband. I have a dog which growls every morning, a parrot which swears all afternoon and a cat that comes home late at night." * Marie Corelli and to be fair: Women have a passion for mathematics. They divide their age in half, double the price of their clothes, and always add at least five years to the age of their best friend. * Marcel Achard The True Meaning of Christmas http://www.llerrah.com/truemeaningofchristmas.htm This week's riddle: What Am I? I never was, am always to be, No one ever saw me, nor ever will And yet I am the confidence of all To live and breathe on this terrestrial ball Answer at the end of the ezine. ========================================== Subscription Management ========================================== Subscriptions to this weekly ezine are free. 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We disclaim any responsibility and/or all liability arising out of, or relating to, any item listed in this ezine, and/or websites. ========================================== Answer to riddle: I am Tomorrow!