Suppose you are an entrepreneur, and you want to sell a product and/or service using online/digital resources. You also want to protect it from copycats or those who want to exploit your business name, reputation and hard work. Name the business and propose a product or service it provides, and explain how you would use intellectual property (IP) protections, such as patents, trademarks and trade secrets to ensure you and your business reap the rewards. Consider state protections too.

If I could create my own business I would name it Book Genie. This website would collect the names of all books and upcoming releases. The purpose of the service would be to help others find accurate books based on parameters or books previously read. By doing this, asking friends or buying books you are under the assumption that are similar just to be met with disappointment. Finding people with specific similar tastes is very hard and even trying to google similar books does not match as the theme may be the same, but not the kind of trope wanting. Some wish for enemies to lovers others wish for heartbreak and the list goes on. This website would eliminate the guessing leading to what books you are looking for and feedback would be accepted to help configure the system and if it is helping people with the recommendations.

While the first steps would be through copyrights, patents, trademarks, and secrets there are other steps to be taken to prevent theft or exploiters. Being the algorithm would be unique and people’s data and interests are involved the appropriate security and cybersecurity protections will need to be placed. Hackers getting this information about people’s data and books can be damaging and while it may seem minimal learning someone’s data or interest can lead to that one security question on an account. Keeping out bots and fake accounts that could throw off the data is essential. Keeping users from stealing data or gathering information to steal is another form of protection. User-based access for members in the company to not allow people access to roles not needed is used in many places to not allow members to collect data that can be sold. Information is power and allowing people access to allow information is a security risk.

The appropriate training will also need to be in effect about suspicious links sending out an email to the wrong person or not monitoring emails sent. Even though the site will primarily be online people will need to manage the site to make sure it performing correctly, taking in feedback from members/customers, security managers monitors, etc. Human error can be a risk, but not with the right protections and training as things can be prevented.