Course Documents INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY DOS AND DON TS. 2014, 2016 Integrative Nutrition, Inc.

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1 Course Documents INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY DOS AND DON TS

2 2 WELCOME! Welcome to Integrative Nutrition s Health Coach Training Program. As you begin your year with us, we want to help you understand the importance of intellectual property and give you further information on some of the terms you agreed to in the Student Agreement. WHAT IS INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY? Intellectual Property (IP) is a term that includes all the tangible materials that a person or company creates to which they have exclusive rights. While there are different types of intellectual property, we will focus on trademarks and copyrights, as they are often the foundations many organizations are built on, and misuse of these (even unintentionally) can land you in some hot water. WHAT ARE TRADEMARKS? Trademarks are unique designs, logos, or word pairings that tell consumers where a product or service comes from and are part of the branding process. For example, Nike has the swoosh logo. Even if you don t see the word Nike, the swoosh tells you that the product is made by that company. Other examples include the McDonald s M, the Apple apple, and sports team logos, such as the unique NY for the New York Yankees.

3 3 IIN S TRADEMARKS At IIN, we have a number of trademarks, including Institute for Integrative Nutrition, Integrative Nutrition, the acronym IIN, and our red spiral logo. IIN has devoted a significant amount of time and money to creating and protecting these trademarks. Just think of what comes to mind when you see or read these terms and you ll see how important trademarks can be to making a product unique. Therefore, if you choose to use any of these trademarks to refer to your education or IIN, it s important that you cite them correctly by including the registered trademark symbol:. WHAT ARE COPYRIGHTS? A copyright protects a creator s interest in his or her original works of authorship. These works can be novels, films, songs, plays, designs, paintings, and, yes, the lectures, educational course materials, and other documents we use here at IIN. Any time a person or business creates an original idea, concept, program, lecture, article, or even a memo into a tangible medium, even if it s not registered with the US Copyright Office, it s still automatically copyrighted under federal law.

4 4 IIN S COPYRIGHTS At IIN, our Health Coach Training Program and the materials and resources that accompany it are all copyrighted works. Although we allow students and graduates of our program to use some of the materials and handouts, your editing rights are limited. When your 6-Month Program Resources become available to you, we ll instruct you more specifically on what you can do to customize them without violating our IP, as well as provide you with a few dos and don ts below. INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY DOS When you reference trademarked terms or designs, you must always include the appropriate symbol (be it the of an unregistered trademark or the of a registered one) and use it only to refer to the product or service the mark represents. A good example is our registered trademark Integrative Nutrition. The proper, and only way, to use this term is as a reference to our school and program, such as I was trained at Integrative Nutrition. For our copyrighted material, you can rely upon any of the materials we provide as a means to assist you in your coaching practice. You are allowed to use the handouts specified as part of your practice provided that you keep the IIN copyright at the bottom of each document: Integrative Nutrition Reprinted with permission.

5 5 INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY DON TS It is improper and a violation to use our trademarks in any other way than as a reference to our school and program. For example, saying I practice Integrative Nutrition or I have a certificate in Integrative Nutrition as if it s a description of a field of nutrition that you re practicing would threaten to weaken the strength of our mark and the hard work we have put into making your education a cutting-edge program! You cannot publish, post, share, duplicate, or adapt our copyrighted materials (which include materials from the curriculum or located in the 6-Month Resources) on the Internet or other avenues (such as Facebook, Dropbox, or Evernote) without our explicit permission, as it puts our IP at risk of falling into the wrong hands. You can request permission to use our materials here: QUESTIONS? Even if you mean no harm and only want to help classmates, we ask that you be mindful of these important rules so we can keep your education unique. intellectualproperty@ integrativenutrition.com with any questions; we re happy to help!