How to deal with copycat businesses when you become successful

If you're running a small business and you have big plans on being the main product or service in your industry, you'll always run into copycats if you do end up being successful.  People will piggyback off of your name, maybe even use it for their own branding, and they will profit off of clients who think they are working with you or that they're actually you.

I've run into copycats plenty of times in my online journey, some of them were even copying me lol, but doing your due diligence will quickly weed them out as fakes and you can find the real company who has the authority and respect within the industry.  People will use another businesses name or branding as their own so they can siphon sales from you, which is kind of sleazy, but it works well since many people out there won't go the extra step to do a little bit of research to figure out how good the website or company actually is.

Below are a few ways you can deal with copycats, and they are:

Start the process of getting a patent when you start
If you have something unique or proprietary, you should always think about getting a patent from day 1, mainly because they take a long time to go through processing.  You're not guaranteed to get a patent on your product or service because there could be a different company out there doing something similar to what you are and they've already gotten a patent before you.

If you can't get a patent on what you want, try to modify it and re-apply to get a new patent.  Think of it this way, if you can't get a patent because your setup/system/product is too similar to something else out there in the world, you can get a different one and now it's twice as difficult for a copycat to clone what you're doing since someone else out there is watching for someone to break patent law lol

Bring on a patent lawyer when someone breaks patent law
If someone does happen to break the patent law and use your exact setup/system/product, you likely won't know what to do to get them to stop or take them down.  This is where a patent lawyer comes into play because they have extensive knowledge of what to do when this scenario does pop up, and it likely will.

Think of it this way, you get a notification or find someone using what you have a patent on and they're not paying you a licensing fee, you send in your patent lawyer sharks to sue the company or person selling something you have a patent on.

There are two outcomes when it comes to someone abusing patent law, and they are:

1. You can sue 
   This is one of the most common steps to take if someone abuses the patents you have.  You can get a decent amount of money from the person or company who is abusing the patents for their own profit.  Usually, this will end out of court because the copycat will settle and just pay you a nice amount of money.  They will then change up their systems, products, or services to be unique and not include what you have a patent on.
   
   
2. You can license 
   Normally, you won't ask someone to strike up a licensing deal because they've already stepped on your feet, but more often than not they will sign up with you in order to not pay for a lawsuit.  Licensing is a big thing, you're basically telling them they can use your product specs as long as they're paying you $XX,XXX per month, or whatever you deem the right amount.  This usually is a far second compared to just suing the company because you don't make as much money from the copycat because they tend to be small fry in the industry.  Now, if you get a big box company breaking the patent law, you can get a nice licensing agreement in writing and make money on autopilot simply because you have something they really want to sell

Own their website or company
When someone is copying your product or setup, you can usually sue them if you have a patent, and you'll likely win.  On the other hand, you can settle before even getting into the courts or bringing in a lawyer by having them sell you their website or company for a fraction of what it's worth, then redirect all that traffic to your own pages. 

Now, if you're going against a big corporation, they won't sell you their website or company because it's likely worth more than what you're going to sue them for.  If you're going after a small company, send in a patent lawyer who will threaten to sue, then see if you can simply acquire the company that is making money off of your patent.  If they're making a few thousand a month and you're going to sue for hundreds of thousands of dollars, they will sell to you at an extremely low price or they'll just give you their website and business to avoid any sort of lawsuit.  If you get their websites and business for free, they will still have made money off of you, so it's up to you if you want to go after them for the profits they've already made or just call it a game and move on after you get everything they were profiting from.


In conclusion
Copycats are all over the place because not many people out there have unique ideas and would rather wait for you to figure something out, then they'll come in and snipe some sales.  If you have a patent, they will have to deal with your lawyers, and that usually means a small website and company is now yours or a large corporation will settle outside of court and stop using what you have a patent on or they will pay you a licensing fee or royalty on each product sold. 


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Thanks!

Tommy Carey