Hello everyone, and welcome to this week's episode of relationships rule. My guest this week is Celeste, the trademark accelerator, and this is an interesting topic that I know very little about, and so I thought it would be interesting to share with you my audience, because Celeste has been in this field for many, many years, and she is a pro at it, and so I appreciate her coming on the show. Welcome to the show, Celeste. Thank you so much for having me. I really
appreciate it. You're very welcome. Celeste is coming to us from England, which is really cool, and for the past 10 years, has been consulting clients who feel overwhelmed by the daunting task of trademark application. She's aware that not everything can or should be trade become trademarks, and will only perform the application if she's certain that she can avoid wasting her clients money. And so that's probably a really good place to start, like what is trademarkable and what isn't.
So anything that is generic cannot be trademarked, and anything that is unique can't. Well, not anything, but things that are unique can be because there are still things that cannot, cannot and should not ever be trademarked and and that's as it should be, because if everything could be trademarked, then we wouldn't be able to have a normal conversation, and that would be a pain in the behind,
as you can imagine. So so it's really important to know and understand that, yes, you may be able to do it yourself to register a trademark yourself. However, there is that thing with a rejection. You may not understand why the trademark authority rejected it, and you may not think that that you did
anything wrong. However, you will not get the money back, because all the trademark authorities all over the world, they will always all work in the same way, where they assess your application, and if you do not have the legal knowledge, you may actually risk being rejected. You may be lucky and do register a trademark yourself. However, in many cases, you will get a rejection, and what you don't get is you don't get the money back, because they perform their job and assess your
Yeah, so you're better to work with an expert like you to make sure that you're going on the right track. So I think of trademarks as visual things that you're trademarking, like a logo or a title, or, you know, your store name, or, you know, things that people visual things. And I think, okay, so there's intellectual property. Is that the like umbrella of all these things? Okay, so trademarks, and then copyrights, and then what else is there? Copyright is like
for books and things, right? And papers and words,
yes, and this is So, this is my book, and I have a copyright. Control your own
copyright. It's more, okay, perfect. It needs updating, yeah.
But this, this is my book, and it's my it's actually my life's work, and what I've done also, because I'm me, I've put my trademark on every single page.
Ah, okay. And for our listeners, the trademark that Celeste has is like her shield. It's like, it's almost like a shield. So she has, it's unique, and therefore it was able to be trademarked, and that's what I'm seeing. And her company name is Grand IPR, correct? Yes, that is correct. Okay, so we've got, we've got content would be under copyright. Is that correct?
Yes, and so. And it also covers films and it covers photographs and it covers sound recording and architecture. And actually, in France, they are quite adamant about upholding rights to certain structures. So the Eiffel Tower, for instance, even though it was built back in the 1800s there is now a light installation on it. And if you do not have specific permission, you may photograph it, but you may not use it for purposes you have to obtain permit. Oh,
interesting. But how do they how do they monitor that?
I don't know how they monitor that. I just know that that's how, how they, they behave in France, right?
Interesting. So, okay, so that actually interests me in that you live where, in London, right? Or no, I live
in England. I live in North Lacher, but my business is registered in London, right?
So, but, and you're, you. Have lived in, I think you're Danish. Is that correct? Or you've lived in Denmark, you went to
school, and I was born in Denmark, correct? And I studied the law in Denmark, and I always felt that I wanted to move sort of beyond the little, little areas that Denmark is. Denmark is. Denmark is a very, very small economic area, even though it's a strong one, there are only 7 million people in all of Denmark. So like, Paris is like twice as big Paris alone,
you know, so are things different in Europe than they are in North America when it comes to trademark and copyright. Do you know, or is it just usually that it with this type of thing? It's the same worldwide.
The really, really excellent thing for me is it's more or less the same worldwide. So that makes my life so much easier. And and, yeah, people do?
People? Do people apply for trademarks in multiple countries?
Yes, there is no such thing as a global trademark that does not exist. So even the big brands that we think of as a global trademark, such as Apple, for instance, yes, is not a global trademark. They
have to have the trademark in every country that they sell, and they
don't, they don't even have it every single country, because there will be countries where it's deemed on, on worthwhile for them or not worthwhile. That was a funny word I made up.
Yeah, not worthwhile, yeah. So, yeah. Oh, interesting. Okay, that I didn't, I wouldn't have thought of so you, you have, you have a couple of comments here on, I think it might be a workshop that you do, but you're talking about what people need to know, about how to protect their their content, their copyright, their cash flow, their credibility and their confidentiality. And so those are all interesting to me. So how do you copyright your cash or, how do you protect your
cash flow? First of all,
so these are all all topics that I touch on in the upcoming event I did. I actually wrapped it last week, and I'm doing it again in November on the 25th so it's five days, and these are 30 minute sessions, and there is a mystery gift for the people who attend. To be eligible, they have to be there all five days. And it's it's a really great and fun event, because people come with different backgrounds and different sort of issues and different experiences, and so are
they learning? It's mostly to learn about how to trademark something, or whether what they have is is worthy of being trademarked. It
is to learn what type of intellectual property they have. First of all, okay, because all of, all of so all of the intellectual property goes hand in hand to form a stronger shield of protection, as I always say, Oh, okay. And actually, people have a tendency to push intellectual property to the backs of their minds because it sounds so complex. And yes, it is complex. However, for me, it is not
complex, and I absolutely love it. And I love these events that I'm doing so much that I will just keep doing them, because they are so educational for people, and they just love them. I got some really, really great testimonials. So I just, I just know that this is part of what I'm meant to be doing moving
forward. So, you know, there's no question about that. And it is also important that people understand that they can have different types of intellectual property that can affect their cash flow if they don't protect it.
Well, I think what comes to my mind is what the big, huge changes that happened a few years ago in the music industry, and how artists and songwriters and so on really had to step up their protection of their properties. And we saw Taylor
Swift, she all of her own work, yeah,
because somebody else was owned. Her property, right? And intellectual property, intellectual property, yes, her intellectual property, yeah. And so she chose to do that, but, and that's a huge undertaking and expense in itself, but then she has a license to print money anyway. But anyway, that's, she's, she's another story. However, she's
an interesting lady. And, yeah, she's got loads of trademarks, by the way.
Yeah, interesting. So, so there's that. And then I think the rise of intellectual property attorneys rose as well. Because it became, it has become, with the way the world is a bigger issue now we've got chat GPT and all of the things that go along with that. There's going to be more laws and more new ways of looking at things to protect people's intellectual property, right?
And also, the thing is, with regards to AI, I use it because it's to me who experiences life with dyslexia. It was a label I got right after I got my master's degree in law. It can help me immensely to get stuff with the help of AI and and the more creative we are, and the more sort of we refine it, the more protectable it actually becomes. At the beginning, I thought that that's there's no way that this is
protectable. And actually, I heard a podcast from Denmark the other day, where they said that the more you are creative with what you put into it. And that's the important thing to know about, AI, because when we started out using it, I started I had no idea how to use it. I just, you know, put whatever in. And so the result came back really, really poor. But the better we get at romping the AI tool to work for us, the more it gets to sound, I guess, and the more it gets protectable,
actually. So that's really, really interesting. And, and even, yeah, even, even photographers can also use AI prompts and stuff like that. So it is about being as creative. I think there was something in that podcast, unfortunately, in some Danish. So unless people understand Danish, they won't
understand what's going on. But there, I think there was something about a Vogue photo shoot where the photographer had been really, really creative, and put in loads and loads and loads and loads and loads of information, and each time tweaking it so that it became more and more refined, and that then was a Vogue cover, and that was actually protectable. And this is really important to know and understand, because otherwise we can think that, oh no, because it's an AI tool, I'm
not protected, actually, yes, we are. So
you're saying that they, this photographer created the shoot through AI. I'm
not entirely sure how that happened. I just know that the prots that
were put in, well, they do do visuals on it, so it makes sense. Yeah, I think that
it was the visual for it. I'm not sure it was the actual photo shoot, but it was definitely a vote that
was probably an artificial photo shoot. It was done through AI, yeah, interesting, yeah. And you never know anymore. Like, you know, I'm a LinkedIn trainer, and I've been doing some training lately with a group of people that are in this corporation. And I always talk about, you know, their headshots, and three of the last people that I've talked
to have all used AI photos. And I'm like, really, like, I didn't know two of them were but the third one, I knew the person, so I knew it was something a bit off to me, but I can still recognize it, but I it some of it's weird, still weird, like and of course, the people are saying to me, well, it saved me a lot of money and time to do it that way. But, you know, I don't want to put people out of a job yet. Thank you. So I say go to a
photographer. But I just thought it was interesting that, you know, we're using it for many different things, and in good ways and in bad ways. So that's where the trademarks and the copyrights and all of that comes into play as well right now. And we also
have to be very, very aware of deep fake, because it has become so mind blowing that I saw a short video clip. I think it was on LinkedIn, where or YouTube. I can't remember exactly where, but it you saw like at the front there was a female, and then up in the corner you saw a man, and it was the man's voice that came out of the female's mouth. And so it was just showing how deep fake has become. So they can really manipulate. Yes,
I've seen some examples of manipulation as well. In fact, Oprah did an interesting show on AI a couple a few weeks ago, and they had some different examples of things that they showed it was quite, quite devastating. It was kind of eye opening, but scary in a lot of ways, for sure. So you've talked a little bit about, and this is sort of an aside, but you've talked twice now about dyslexia and being
diagnosed. As an adult with dyslexia. So if you went all through school and all through your life to that point not knowing what was wrong, but you struggled with reading, I'm said, I'm guessing and
not reading homework, I hated homework the way.
You don't have to be you don't have to hate have dyslexia to hate homework. So how did it
affect you? I didn't thrive with it. I didn't. I didn't enjoy it. I didn't, yeah, I didn't like it. And I, you know, I don't know why. I just didn't, didn't enjoy it, and and I'm managed to go through, like, the majority of my schooling, and as I say, I started studying the law at 35 so there was a gap between. I finished whatever I was doing before and then started studying the law. And I just had no idea. I just thought that I was incredibly slow when it and I
didn't understand how to structure an assignment. Even while I was at university, I didn't understand how to structure it properly. And so that was I didn't get very good grades, except in intellectual property
well, but with from my understanding I was a teacher, and from my understanding dyslexia is seeing letters and numbers backwards and mixing them up. In some cases, I
don't do that necessarily. Just there are just words. They're just words that I cannot re spell, like Switzerland and Danish, I cannot spell it. Yeah, there are things the word necessary in English, I've had to figure out a way to say the word to myself so that I can spell it.
Okay. So spelling is an issue. Yes, yeah. And grammar is an issue, okay, okay. Well, and how many languages do you speak? Six? Yes, see, so no wonder. I mean, it's got to be confusing. I mean, nobody speaks that. Only Europeans are the people that I know that speak more than one, that were two languages at the most. I'm so envious, and I could never start
at this late age, but it's amazing to me. But that has to come into play, because, you know, actually I saw, I saw a very funny bit on Instagram where this guy was showing words, and he said, like, B, O M, B, bomb. And then he put the next word up, C, O M, B, that should be calm, right? No, it's calm. And then he went through a whole list of them. It was hysterical, because the English language is not easy for for a foreigner to to understand spelling and and reading wise.
So I would imagine that would play into you learn if you've been able to learn so many different languages, are you sure them
since I was a little child? Yeah, I think that has something to do with it, because, and I've always loved languages. And actually my father, well, you know, both my father and my mother and my maternal grandmother, they would read stories to me, so maybe that's why I love reading. I don't know. However, there was one story in particular that my father was reading where there was this young girl who collected words. So I started collecting
I love it. That's great. Well, my granddaughter, I'm going off on a little tangent here, but my granddaughter, who's five, couple weeks ago, was over and said she wanted to watch this little five year old special show Paw Patrol, which is big in the United States and Canada. And I couldn't find it as well. Okay, so I couldn't find what she wanted on Netflix, so we found it, and it was on the French channel. And I said, Well, you have to watch it in
French. She said, Okay, grandma, so she'd seen it before anyway, so she knew exactly what was going on, and she watched it in French. So she came over last week and she said, Could I watch that show in French again, grandma? So I thought that was really funny. And that's when they're going to pick it up, right? That's when they're going to pay attention to that. So I thought that was really funny. Okay, I digressed. And okay, so if I would imagine what the answer will be to this, but I'm
going to ask you anyway. So do people talk to you about the names of their companies and whether and then, do you often suggest or recommend a tweak to make it trademarkable?
Yes, they do, and that's what the asks list. Anything session is for so that they can ask me all the questions that are like, Oh, I don't know what to do about this. Or I don't know, is this even something that can become registered as a trademark or, you know, and in those sessions,
I can then say, I recommend that you can. Something different, and depending on how many questions they have, because they may have many questions that may eat up all the time because it's a 15 minute session, however, if it's just the one question, then we can sit and have a conversation about what I would suggest, like I I would never suggest to someone that they use their personal name for their
business. I do say that. Sorry. I knew you were going to say that, yeah, because I there was a Danish clothes designer that I'm connected to on LinkedIn. We weren't we weren't friends. When I heard her story, because it was part of the case study, what
I was studying in the law. However, she had a business, and she was using her personal name for her label, and to cut a really long and tedious story short, the label, her business went bust, and the label was sold to a third party, and then she continued using her name as her label, and then she was infringing upon Yeah, and so the High Court of Denmark has sentenced her to find herself a new name, and so it's only on social media in her own home, she is still the same person.
She can still use her birth name, but on social media. And so she chose the name Lou, because in in Danish, l, I, V means life, and she reasoned that she was not dead, she was still alive. So that's why she chose that, and she now has a completely different business name, and she's doing really, really well, and she's massively successful, and she's absolutely a wonderful person. And actually, something similar
happened to a designer here in the UK called karen millen. I haven't got the exact details of her story, but it's something similar. So I always say, be careful of using your own personal name, because it may actually have severe consequences. And, you know, I see it as my, my job to protect people as best I can. And even in those 15 minutes I will, I will do my best to do that. That's
very interesting. Those are good stories, good examples. Mm, hmm. So, of course, I did that. I chose my name because I learned that. You know, I was a one. I was a solo printer, and I wanted people to recognize me for they. Wanted them to know my name, because I'm all about relationships and people, and so I wanted to make sure that you meet. But you know, if I had to do it again, I'd probably do something different. But I don't know it's too late for me now, but that's
okay. It's all good. So, but it definitely is an interesting and we ought to take more we are. We ought to pay more attention to trademarking and register and copyrights and things like that, because in this, this is the word litigious, litigious world where people are suing people left and right.
We do have to, and especially in North America. Oh, I know, yeah, very, very particular to to North America. I know they are, well, more more
the US than Canada. Canada is we're all too polite. Okay, sorry, I'm in us, so that's okay. I'm not, I'm not offended, for sure, but it is something that it sounds as though having an expert guide one through it is also the best way to go. So okay, you live in the UK. You speak a lot of Denmark because you went to school. You did some schooling there. Do you ever come over here to North America? Have you ever been over to North America, not yet,
and I'm not averse to it. I would like to, and I obviously also do read up about the legislation in both Canada and America, because in Canada actually the trademark protection is a tiny bit longer than in most of the countries, because in Canada, it is 15 years, and most other countries have a 10 year period. So in Canada, it's a 15 year renewal cycle, and in other countries, it's a 10 year, uh, renewal cycle. And in America, after five years, you have to provide proof of usage.
Oh, really, yes, what? Or they take it away, or, or what it could Oh, interesting, yes. What's an example of that? So you like you would need, you would start a company and get it trademarked, the name trademarks, but then you may. Maybe don't do anything for a couple of years with it.
I don't have any examples of people that haven't done that. I have examples of of companies that haven't upheld their their rights. So Sony, Oh no, what? Yeah, Sony had Walkman. Walkman was a trademark. It's no longer a trademark. Escalator used to be a trademark. Oh,
interesting escalator,
yeah. Um, I know that Xerox is very, very, uh, aware of people saying that they're xeroxing stuff, because that is not, that is not right. You, you can copy something with the photocopier, but you don't Xerox it.
And that's like, Kleenex too. Then I guess,
I don't know if Kleenex has fallen in. I haven't looked that up, but I, you know, I had, I had a few examples in my book, but, yeah, those are the ones that I can remember. I think, yeah, escalator nylon was a trademark as well. So it's just really, really important that you have your trademark and then you register it, but you cannot leave it alone. You need to enforce it as well, and that is also part of the service that I deliver. Okay,
excellent. All right. So couple of last questions for you, please, Celeste, the first one is, what is your best piece of advice that you would give my audience around what you do? What would you like to leave with them?
I want them to reflect on whatever it is that they have created, and really know and understand that it has real value in the world, and as such, it does actually need tender love and care in the form of either copyright protection or, well, not either, or actually both, so that they protect it. And if it is an object, like an iPhone for for Apple, you know, it's not just the item itself. It is the whole
experience. So the box itself, the way things are organized inside the box, really, all of that has been thought off, and they are protecting that. So in Denmark, they refer to something called trade dress, and it's, it's, it's the packaging of how something is presented to you as the consumer. So there are so many things to consider once you have because you know, if you have a signature program or a new product, or you have made a new invention, like, say, you've had a massive breakthrough in
medical invention that deserves a protection with a patent. So it is. It's about sitting back and thinking, Okay, this thing that I have put all my time, energy, love and maybe even tears and blood and sweat into it deserves me looking properly after it. So I'm going to talk to somebody like Celeste and and have her help me in this situation, you know,
yeah, that's excellent advice. And I'm always curious. I'm a curious person, and I'm I'm curious to know your thoughts on curiosity. So do you think that curiosity is innate or learned? And part two, what are you most curious about today? So part one, first,
I think maybe it is innate, because there are people that are just not that curious, and there are people that, you know almost feel that they themselves are all they ever need. And you know, that's fine. I'm not judging anyone here. It's just I think that curiosity is what helps us to be creative and innovative. And what am I curious about this conversation today, I was curious about where it would take us, and I've totally loved this conversation because it has
taken us in many different directions. And that's what I love. That's what Curiosity will do for you. It will lead you down different paths, and then you come back, and then you go down another path. I totally love that. Oh,
excellent. I'm glad that you enjoyed it, because I guess that's my crazy mind and what happens and and my curiosity takes over. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you for being here today. It was most enjoyable and informative as well. In many ways, I appreciated that, and I hope my audience does. Two and to that point, thank you for being here. And please let me know. Let us know if you like what you heard. And please feel free to get hold of Celeste. Check out her book.
I will leave the information to find her in the show notes. And remember to stay connected and be remembered. Thank you for having me. You're welcome.