Drone Shows: An incredible new horizon in intellectual property.

Drone show in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, for the Fourth of July

For the July 3rd, I had the chance to see my first drone show. I was not prepared for what I was going to see.

With just 500 drones, Northern Lights Drone Shows was able to project images of a waving American Flag, a map of the United States with Wisconsin lit up, and most impressive of all, a jet fighter doing a barrel roll. I have never seen anything like it.

But what really got me thinking was the intellectual property involved in a show like this.

The trademark possibilities are incredible. Trademarks that are formerly only two dimensional can be made three dimensional. A drone show's sponsors can have their logos and names displayed in the sky as "commercial breaks" mid-show. On the flipside, popular characters like Batman or Elsa from Frozen could be licensed to drone shows to increase fan appeal.

The coding for the drone show can be protected by copyright. The order of the images can be protected by copyright. The images themselves may be protectable by copyright. Once copyrighted, those shows can be licensed to drone show companies. I can easily envision a world where small programmer shops develop intense drone shows, and license them to drone operators around the world.

An incredibly exciting time to be in intellectual property law.

(Also, I guess I caught myself droning on about this. But really, the sky is the limit to this new industry.)