Q: I'm starting a new brewery with friends, and we want to know how soon we need to copyright our products?
A:
Congratulations on your new venture! I hope that it is a great success.
You can start to protect your intellectual property right away. The most important for you will likely be trademarking your product names, logos, etc. You can file for federal registrations before you ship your first bottle, or you can do it after you've been in business for years, or anywhere between there. There are, of course, business reasons why you'd want to do it earlier or later.
If you invented a new brewing process, then you may want to file for patent protection, in which case you need to see a patent lawyer ASAP. There are time limits which you need to be aware of.
With regards to copyright, you probably do not need to worry about it too much. If someone uses the text of your advertisements, or copies your commercials, without your permission and you want to stop them, then you'd see a copyright lawyer at that point.
Will Blackton agrees with this answer
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