The Language of Small Business Texts and Vocabulary Training (for students of Economics) Part 2. Учебное пособие

Raising the Money

Listed securities STK. EXCH. Securities that have been admitted (accepted) by the Quotations Committee of the Stock Exchange and, after close examination of the company’s financial position and reputation, have been included in the official List of securities dealt in by members of the Stock Exchange. Syn. quoted securities.

Definitions of terms

Овердрафт – вид краткосрочного кредита; представля- ется списанием средств сверх остатка на текущем счете клиен- та; обычно составляется соглашение о максимальной сумме овердрафта, условиях предоставления, порядке погашения; в отличие от обычных ссуд объем кредита меняется в зависимо- сти от поступления сумм на текущий счет.

Заемный капитал – образуется за счет средств от выпус- ка облигаций и банковского кредита.

Рисковый капитал – средства, вложенные в компании, новые предприятия, что связано в определенным риском на первой стадии их деятельности; особенно характерен для про- грессивных в техническом отношении отраслей экономики.

Фондовая биржа – организационная форма торговли ценными бумагами и валютой.

Закрытая компания – (в Англии) фирма, контролируе- мая не более, чем пятью лицами, обычно находящимися в род- ственных отношениях; акции такой компании распределяются между ее членами и не поступают в свободную продажу.

For discussion

1.How much money should you ask for from your lender or investor?

2.What course are you advised to steer while looking for a lender?

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3.Why is it said that sometimes it is easier to find very large sums of money for your business than small ones?

4.What do you need money for if you are starting a new business?

5.What is «working capital»?

6.What are the ways of raising money?

7.Who may be lenders and investors? Describe each in turn.

8.How to do the presentation of your business plan?

Summary

1.Рассматривайте переговоры о получении денег как акт продажи.

2.Будьте убеждены, что просите нужную сумму денег; очень трудно приходить к инвестору вновь и просить большую сумму.

3.Может оказаться трудным изыскать менее 100000 фунтов.

4.Овердрафты предназначены на короткий срок; долго- срочное финансирование обеспечивается заемами или продажей акций, если это компания.

5.Вы должны вложить в бизнес столько же, сколько и внешний инвестор, или, возможно, половину этой сум- мы. Редко удается вложить значительно меньшую часть, чем внешний инвестор, и при этом сохранить контроль.

6.Обеспечение заема собственным домом или предоставле- нием личных гарантий является очень серьезным шагом. Не предпринимайте его легкомысленно или не посовето- вавшись ссемьей.

7.Деньги можно изыскать через банк, частных лиц и компа- нии, фонды рискового капитала, благотворительные орга- низации, местные власти.

8.Тщательно готовьте представление своего бизнес-плана.

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Beating the Pirates

UNIT 4.

Beating the Pirates

Successful small businesses do not need to be founded on an invention or an original design. The Eureka syndrome can play a very small part in the success of a business. A much more important factor is that there is a market there which wants to buy your product, and this may not be the case with every new idea. The ultimate in good indicators for success would be a strong market and an original product. But so often this is not so; there is unlikely to be a ready-built marketplace waiting for inventions. You may need to educate customers. This can be expensive as well as time-consuming.

However, if you have thought of an invention, a trade mark or an original design which could form the kernel of a successful small business, is it worth trying to protect it with the law? Almost certainly, yes is the answer. If the idea, for example, can be turned into profits, someone else may try to copy it and you should obtain the best protection you can, so that you make the profits, not the imitator.

The law cannot protect alone. First, you have to be vigilant in watching out for infringements. Second, and more importantly, the best protection of all is guaranteed by carrying out effective marketing: this can turn a product based on an invention, for exfample, into the leading product and establish your business as the market leader.

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WHAT TO DO WITH AN INVENTION

WHAT IS AN INVENTION WHICH CAN BE PATENTED?

There are four requirements for something to be regarded as an invention for patent purposes. These are that it must:

−be new: it must not have been published or made known anywhere in the world previously;

−involve an inventive step: by and large this means that it must not be obvious to another person with knowledge of that particular subject;

−be capable of industrial application: an idea which cannot be made or used will not be counted as an invention;

−not be excluded: there are various categories of ideas which are excluded by law. These include something which is a discovery (that is, you found out about it, but did not invent it), scientific theory or mathematical method, mental process, literary, artistic or aesthetic creation, playing a game, presentation of information or computer program.

Other ideas which are excluded are anything which would be regarded as encouraging offensive, immoral or anti-social behaviour, a new animal or plant variety or a method of diagnosis or surgery for animals or humans.

WHAT IS A PATENT?

A patent of invention is granted by a government body. It gives the owner of an invention the right to take legal action against others who may be trying to take commercial advantage of the invention without getting the owner’s permission. This right is granted in return for complete disclosure by the owner of his invention.

If your invention is of a type that you believe you may want to exploit throughout Europe, not just in the UK, it could be

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cheaper to take advantage of the European Patent Convention. This allows you to obtain patent rights in a number of European countries. You need to make only one patent application, whereas if you applied for a UK patent first, you would then need to apply for patents in each of the individual countries which you thought important.

CAN YOU GET A PATENT?

The main criterion for granting a patent is whether or not the invention meets the four guidelines about what an invention is.

One area you have to be particularly careful about is that you should not tell anyone (apart from in confidence to a patent agent, which would be a good idea) or publish information about your invention before you file your application at the Patent office. This may mean that, even if no one else has thought of your idea, you will not be able to get a patent.

Occasionally, even if you have been granted a patent, you may find that someone challenges it. This would be on the grounds that someone else had already thought of the invention and had made details of it public before you filed your application for your patent. The other person may have decided not to bother to apply for a patent. Making details of it public would include describing it in a trade journal or exhibiting it or selling it.

WHAT DOES IT COST?

When you first file your application, you have to enclose a fee of £15. Within a year, you will have to pay a fee of £95 for a preliminary search and examination. If you still decide to go ahead with your patent application there is another fee of £110. To keep the patent in force for the maximum twenty years, there is a yearly renewal fee, which increases each year.

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However, many inventors use a patent agent to help with the application, as it can truly be a complicated and very lengthy task. You would have to check the fees before employing one.

The cost (in official fees up to grant of the patent) for a European patent is more – in total around £1,500, compared with the UK patent of around £200. After the patent is granted, national fees are payable to each of the designated countries.

A STEP-BY-STEP GUIDE TO OBTAINING A PATENT

(This is a guide to UK patents)

1.Keep mum about your invention, except in confidence to a patent agent.

2.Complete and file patents form 1 / 77 in the Patent Office, together with the necessary fee. With the form should be sent a description of the invention. This description must be drafted in accordance with the rules laid down by the Patent Office which specify the exact format it should take. It must describe the invention fully and clearly enough so that a competent person could follow the description and build it or carry out the process. Enclose two copies, preferably typed and on A4 size paper.

3.You will receive a receipt with the date of filing and a number. This gives you your priority date which gives you precedence over the same invention being filed later. But this is no guarantee that the same invention has not already been publicized elsewhere by another person.

4.During the next year, examine the commercial possibilities of your invention and decide whether to press on with your application or let it lapse.

5.If you make an improvement to your invention, you cannot add it to your first application but would have to file a new

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one. However, as long as you do this within a year of the priority date, that date will apply to whatever is in the new application which was also in the first application. The first application can now be allowed to lapse.

6.Within a year of the priority date you need to file a request for a preliminary search and examination on patents form 9 / 77, together with the required fee. If you do not do this, your application lapses.

7.Once the search has been carried out by a Patent Office Examiner, a search report will be issued. This is a list of relevant documents so you can compare your invention with others and decide whether your application is likely to be successful.

8.If you do not withdraw your application at this stage, your application will be published by the Patent Office without any changes.

9.Within six months of publication of the application, you have to file the next form plus the required fee. There is now a much more detailed examination of your invention.

10.As a result of this substantive examination, amendments may be required by the Examiner. If these are carried out satisfactorily and within the required time, the patent will be granted.

WHAT TO DO WITH A DESIGN

Sometimes the success and failure of a product depends not only on how it works, but on what it looks like. The outward shape or decorative appearance of a product can also be protected, either by:

− relying on the automatic protection of design right (a bit like copyright), or by;

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− registering the design, by applying to the Patent Office. This gives stronger protection but not all designs can be registered – and it takes time and money to register.

WHAT PROTECTION DOES DESIGN RIGHT GIVE YOU?

Design right means someone else cannot copy the shape or configuration of an article if it is an original, non-commonplace design. Design right does not apply, for example, to items like wallpapers or textiles (but these may still be protected by copyright and you may be able to register them).

Design right protection lasts for the shorter of:

−ten years from the end of the year in which you first start selling articles made to the disign, or

−fifteen years from the end of the year in which you created the design.

You have an exclusive right for the first five years after you start selling the articles, and in the remaining five years others can obtain a licence to the design – but you don’t have to hand over drawings or know-how.

The limits to design right are that:

−something you design to fit or match an article designed by someone else won’t get protection;

−design right protection applies in the UK only.

WHAT IS A REGISTERED DESIGN?

Registering a design gives you a monopoly right for the «look» of an article or set of articles manufactured from the design. The protection lasts for twenty-five years, but you have to renew it every five years to keep the protection.

You can’t register a design either if the outward appearance of the article is not important or if the shape of the article is deter-

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mined by the shape of another item. And the design must be «new», otherwise registration won’t be granted. For this reason, it is important to keep the details of the design secret before you register; if you have not done so, it will not count as new.

ASTEP-BY-STEP GUIDE TO REGISTRATION OF A DESIGN

1.Keep mum about your design, except in confidence to a patent agent.

2.Tell the Designs Registry what the design is and what is going to be made from it. You must do this with a copy of the design, for example, a drawing or a photograph, in accordance with the rules laid down by the Designs Registry. Remember to send the required fee.

3.The Registry carries out searches and assesses whether the design is original and new. If it is, registration is granted.

WHAT TO DO WITH A TRADE OR SERVICE MARK

WHAT IS A TRADE MARK?

A trade mark is something which identifies a product in the eyes of the consumer. The consumer will know who has manufactured the goods or who is selling them. A service mark is something which identifies a service. Trade and service marks are closely linked with the idea of building loyalty among customers, so that they will choose your product or service over another similar one.

A trade or service mark can be a word or a symbol, such as a logo. Obviously, what you use as your trade mark should be carefully considered, as it needs to fit in with the image of your product and business which you are trying to put across.

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HOW CAN YOU PROTECT IT?

You can register a trade or service mark with the Trade Marks Registry (part of the Patent Office). To be possible for registration, the mark must be distinctive. A made-up word or a new symbol would be considered distinctive. Ordinary words would not; although after a number of years, with the advertising you put behind such a trade mark and the reputation for the product and business which you build up, the mark can acquire distinctiveness. Consumers will now recognize what was formerly an everyday word or name as identifying your product.

Registration entitles you, and only you, to use the mark. It gives you the right to take action against someone else to prevent them from using the mark.

There are also some simple steps you can take to help protect the mark yourself. For example, put TM beside the mark when you use it in advertisements or sales literature. It can also help to include a sentence like «Microtops is the trade mark of Matthews Computer Stores».

WHAT DOES REGISTRATION COST?

It depends on whether other people challenge your mark during the registration process. The cost can be somewhere between £100 and £200. However, this would only be for one class of goods, and there are thirty-four altogether. If you intend to use your mark on more than one product, you may need to apply for registration in more than one class.

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