Unlocking IP: INTA’s Media Mission

Susan Natland (Knobbes Marten, USA)

Many of us will have seen media reports on celebrities “trademarking their copyright”—or inventors applying for a copyright, when in fact they have obtained a patent. And many of us will have also seen the David versus Goliath stories that hit the headlines, skewing towards the negative of a big company enforcing its IP against a small company.

Trevor Little (World Trademark Review, United Kingdom)

In turn, the potential for inaccuracy in the reporting of IP can have serious implications for the media-consuming public.

This is precisely why the 2023 Presidential Task Force (PTF) focused on giving the media the tools and resources it needs to understand and report on IP, and ultimately to act as a conduit for making IP intelligible and relatable to the public.

In May 2024, the PTF published its report Unlocking IP, which addresses the question of how to disseminate factually correct and usable information about IP to the media.

Here, the PTF Co-Chairs, Susan Natland (Knobbes Marten, USA) and Trevor Little (World Trademark Review, United Kingdom) highlight the many components of the PTF’s work, from the surprising results of a curated consumer survey to the ideas behind the media toolkit.

Firstly, for those who may not know, what is Unlocking IP?
Trevor Little: Unlocking IP is essentially about making IP more accessible, particularly amongst the public at large. IP isn’t locked away as such, but it can be hard to penetrate, and it’s easily misunderstood.

It’s a way to highlight how IP can be a force for good—it can facilitate business growth, create jobs, and help consumers choose the products they love. It also looks to address misrepresentation around IP and counter some of the narratives around the perceived negatives of IP rights.

Susan Natland: In the IP community, we know the value that IP brings and the role that it plays in economic prosperity, driving innovation, and keeping consumers safe. But the public is sometimes unable to appreciate the nuances of IP and how it helps their local economies and their own consumer experiences.

The idea is that if the media has a strong understanding of these issues and concepts, so too will its readers. The media acts as a conduit to its readers, so we hope that the public will have a better understanding of some of these issues when the media does.

We really wanted to try to drive home certain aspects of IP—such as what value IP brings to economies, the harm that stems from misuse, and the fundamental role of IP in consumer safety—and educate the media about these issues so it can ultimately help the public understand.

Why was the PTF convened to look at unlocking IP, and what is ultimately gained when the media understands IP and acts as a partner to the IP world?
TL: 2023 INTA President Jomarie Fredericks (Rotary, USA) chose unlocking IP as the subject of her PTF because one of her goals was to make what we do as clear to as many people as we could. We are trying to communicate to the public the benefits of IP. The media can be used as a channel for this.

Reaching the public is quite difficult, and by using the media to help us bring some nuance to the way that IP is reported, we can address existing misconceptions.

There are a lot of journalists that, because they can’t be experts in everything they cover, don’t understand the intricacies of IP. It’s very easy to sit on the sidelines and be critical of that. We want to be an ally to the media and be a supportive force for journalists to help them avoid those mistakes.

SN: It also helps to stop misconceptions such as IP only being for big companies. Small and medium-sized enterprises drive economies, so it’s really important to get the message across to the public, through the media, that IP is for everyone and here’s how it can help.

In fact, we found in our consumer survey, which we’ll talk about later, that in countries that have more small businesses or more individual business owners, the public is more likely to appreciate IP and its value, as well as brand enforcement.

TL: This isn’t an exercise in trying to control what the media writes. Instead, it’s trying to support and provide information and data points to bring nuance to reporting on IP. We want to help journalists better understand why companies protect and enforce their IP and the benefits of doing so for the company and society.

What we then hope to facilitate is the ability to disseminate a better understanding of IP more generally, because the media’s audience is made up not just of consumers, but also the business owners of today and tomorrow—people who have ideas and might one day own IP they want to protect.

One group within the PTF was tasked with discovery as it related to media reporting on IP, existing resources, and consumer perception of the media and IP. Beyond the materials for the report, what did the team discover as they researched this? Were there any insights that surprised the PTF in this research?
TL: One of the first things we wanted to do in our work was figure out whether there is an actual problem in reporting on IP. Therefore, we conducted a deep dive into what reporting is out there already. We found that there are so many instances of IP terminology being misused, including where different IP rights are mixed up.

We also looked at how we can help crack some of the misuse of terminology, or misunderstandings and misperceptions about IP.

It’s important to say that there is good and knowledgeable reporting going on. It’s not the case that every time IP is covered by the media, a journalist gets it wrong or showcases IP in a negative light.

However, while there are stories out there about famous personalities registering trademarks and other positive stories, there is also negative reporting, with the narratives drifting towards things like trademark bullying and David versus Goliath stories. That’s a very prevalent narrative, which I think we all knew, but we wanted to draw it out, identify examples, and see how prevalent it was.

With some of this “trademark bullying” reporting, if we can help facilitate an understanding of why brands enforce in the way they do, then we can bring some nuance to it.

SN: The goal of Phase One was to obtain a baseline sense of media reporting to see the general understanding or misunderstanding of IP and the pressure points. As part of Phase One, we also designed and ran our own consumer perception survey to understand consumer views and awareness of IP issues, and how they engage with the media. We tested the survey in four countries: Singapore, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

We didn’t see anything quite like this already in existence, and so we did it ourselves. Part of the beauty of the way we designed the survey is that we can slice and dice the results in lots of different ways, including by country, generation, gender, and income level.

We looked at consumer perceptions of brands and brand enforcement, whether consumers understand the value that registration may bring to businesses, the value of IP to communities, the harm of IP misuse, and much, much more. We also provided some hypotheticals and really dug into different situations. For example, consumers were less supportive when brands were trying to enforce descriptive marks, and became less sympathetic towards the brand when it was a big company enforcing its rights against a small company.

Much like peeling the layers of an onion, we also tested purchasing habits. Why are consumers purchasing goods? Is the purchase driven by brand recognition or other factors? What are their views on counterfeiting?

Ultimately, this helped us inform the content for the media toolkit to assist in educating the media, and then ultimately the public, on why brands enforce their IP and the value of IP. There are so many interesting gems in the survey, particularly the insights it provides on the younger generation. For example, Gen Z is the most brand-conscious generation (which isn’t a big surprise), but we also found that they were the most likely to buy counterfeit products. They’re also the least sympathetic to brand protection and enforcement efforts, and the least sympathetic to the fact that companies lose profits due to counterfeiting.

Essentially, Gen Z loves brands, but it doesn’t necessarily love the companies behind the brands. This really helped drive some of our key recommendations and ideas on how to educate the younger generations.

TL: The survey highlights that there needs to be a focus on meaningfully engaging with this young generation. The trademark industry has a problem: Tomorrow’s consumers don’t necessarily like big companies. They like to wear brands, but they don’t care about the companies that make them, and that is going to create some real challenges for the industry going forward. Efforts like INTA’s Unreal Campaign are already doing great work here, but it’s really important to maintain a focus on this.

The overall majority of older generations said that business owners do the right thing by obtaining trademark registrations and that misuse has to stop. With that, we have a positive sentiment to work with, but as you shift to the younger generation, this will definitely be a challenge for the industry tomorrow.

Another group focused on creating the first iteration of the media toolkit. How did you approach creating this media toolkit and how should it be used?
TL: We started with our messaging framework and considered what we wanted the desired audience to understand. For us, this was the positives of IP and the role IP plays in society.

Once we had the message to share, the next element was to facilitate a go-to resource.

With our toolkit development, we had to choose an audience. The specifics of the FAQs and misperceptions are very rooted in the U.S. market. Because the media is so vast, it’s almost impossible to create one toolkit that works for all. One of the recommendations we made to the Association was to create localized versions of this toolkit.

We’ve sought to ensure that the toolkit becomes an easy-to-navigate online resource. Essentially, we’ve sought to create an online tool that won’t intimidate a journalist who wants to understand IP but is short on time.

SN: The messaging framework was the cornerstone for the media toolkit that we developed, and it can be used to discuss IP to any non-IP stakeholder, from CEOs to young consumers.

As to the media toolkit, in addition to data and informational resources, we’ve also included fun facts about IP, which can also be the subject of media reporting, and a robust and instructive primer on IP. We also look to highlight misconceptions, but then gently correct them, to ensure there is a consistent understanding of these really important concepts.

In sum, we have the PTF report and recommendations, we have the consumer survey and the messaging framework, and we have the media toolkit. Each one can be used on its own as a standalone tool and they can be scaled and used in all kinds of different ways to help businesses and the IP community go about unlocking IP.

Although every effort has been made to verify the accuracy of this article, readers are urged to check independently on matters of specific concern or interest. 

© 2024 International Trademark Association