Who Really owns NLP / Neuro Lingustic Programming?
So, everyone's talking about NLP!
Yet, what is NLP; "Napalm, Lettuce and Pickle", or maybe, "Nexium, Lipitor and Prozac" ?
NLP is short for Neuro Linguistic Programming. Some people have asked "who owns NLP?" to which I responded, "Who owns the right of bearing children?". The answers to both questions are, "Everyone" and "Nobody".
So, once I found this article to justify my stance, I had to capture it and put it on my website. This way, I do not ever have to worry about losing this KEY information!
FYI, I copied this page directly from: http://www.neurolinguistic-programming.com/italy/articoli/ANLPnewsbncarotta.htm
L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.
Do you remember the old TV game show from years ago, "Truth or
Consequences"? Suppose it was still on. Suppose we could invite various
people or organizations from around the globe who thought they "owned"
NLP. We could then ask each questions to see if we could figure it out. Then at
the end, at the final suspenseful moment, the announcer would say:
"Will the true "owner" of NLP please stand up?"
* Who would levy a claim of ownership?
* What would they claim to "own?"
* How would they say that they "own" it?
In recent years, there have been a lot of lawsuits in the USA and the UK over
NLP and over this question. Well, let me restate that. Actually the lawsuits
were not about ownership of NLP, but about a much narrower question. They have
been concerned with who controlled the trademark of NLP, the Society of NLP in
the USA, and who could therefore do trade under that mark, namely, control what
constituted authentic and recognized "NLP Training." Typically,
whoever files for and obtains a trademark, has control over the business that
they do under that trademark.
You can find some of the results of the law suits on the web site of the
Association of NLP (ANLP) in the UK (see http://www.anlp.org/). The following
comes from that site to give a flavor of that current state of affairs.
"At a hearing on 19 May it was determined that Richard Bandler has not
owned The Society since 1982. Ownership rests with six people (referred to as
The Bandler Group). It has not been determined whether Bandler is or is not a
member of the Bandler Group. This means that effectively from the date of the
1982 action it is deemed that Richard Bandler does not own or exercise any
rights over the Society of Neuro-Linguistic Programming."
News item - 3 April 2000. "The lawsuit in the USA filed on behalf of
Richard Bandler (see below) has now been settled, unless there is any appeal.
Chris Hall has been awarded $600,000 damages plus costs against Richard Bandler."
"The Court found that... 'Bandler has misrepresented to the public, through
his licensing agreement and promotional materials, that he is the exclusive
owner of all intellectual property rights associated with NLP, and maintains the
exclusive authority to determine membership in and certification in the Society
of NLP.'"
http://www.anlp.org/imagepage1.htm (This is a graphic file of the court
document. Hard to read but it can be made out. (See Endnote 2)
News Item: 12 December 2000.
"In the High Court of London today (12 December 2000), Paul McKenna and
McKenna Breen were adjudged to have committed a serious libel. The case had been
brought by Dr. Tracie O'Keefe in response to an offensive article posted on the
McKenna Breen web site. Damages of 7000 pounds plus costs were awarded to Dr.
O'Keefe."
Both in the UK and in the United States, legal battles have gone on for years
and were finally settled in the winter of 1999 and spring of 2000, again
depriving Richard Bandler of control over the field and giving ownership of
"The Society of NLP" to six persons including Chris Hall.
In the meantime, NLP training Centers and Institutes in the USA and UK and
around the world continue to provide the classic format of Practitioner and
Master Practitioner training as well as training for Trainers of the model. In
addition, there are hundreds of application trainings, some in health, others in
business, yet others for personal development. There are trainings for specific
patterns and processes (Core Transformation, Dominant Eye, Meta-States, etc.)
There are long and short courses for the public, there are long and short
courses inside of businesses and corporations. There are teachers using it in
classrooms, lawyers in courtrooms, and doctors in clinics and hospital rooms,
and therapists in consulting rooms.
In the meantime, NLP is showing up in scores and scores of books being published
every year as NLP books. This doesn't include hundreds of other books that refer
to it, include a chapter about it, present one or more patterns about it, etc.
There are also scores if not hundreds of radio and television talk shows about
NLP.
And last, but not least at all, there are thousands and perhaps hundreds of
thousands of people using NLP every day to run their own brain, manage their
states, figure things out, modeling, etc.
* So who does own NLP?
* And what do we own when we own it?
* How many kinds of ownership and facets of ownership can we speak about?
The Ownership of NLP
As an idea, NLP cannot be "owned" in the sense that it belongs to one
person and not to another.
As an idea, in the free market of ideas, NLP is a way of thinking about (a
paradigm) human functioning and processing. It arose originally, not from
Bandler and Grinder, but from Alfred Korzybski. He first coined the terms Neuro-Linguistic
and Neuro-Semantic in 1936 in some papers and then into his 1941 preface to
Science and Sanity. In the 1930s and 1940s, Count Korzybski traveled the USA
holding "Neuro-Linguistic Trainings." And today, in the two journals
of General Semantics, there are numerous writers who just absolutely hate and
detest our use of the term "neuro-linguistic." They feel like it
belongs to them! I know. Several persons told me so when I spoke at one of their
conventions several years ago.
But, ideas cannot be copyrighted, only products (books, audio and video
recordings, CDs, etc.). With the expression of ideas (whether in a book,
conversation, training, talk show, etc.), ideas run free into the world in the
minds of men and women of every race, culture, and language. You can't contain
ideas. Nor can you trademark or patent them. Those are for specific procedures
or formats that someone invents, like the formula to Coke or Country Fried
Chicken. Of course, once the procedure is revealed (like building a nuclear
bomb), then the idea is out. It is for anyone who wants it, who can understand
it. (See Endnote 1)
Books can be copyrighted. Names, terms, letters, pictures, etc. can be
trademarked (see Endnote). But ideas, ah, ideas... human thinking,
conceptualizing, understanding, emoting ... cannot. NLP as a model of thoughts,
as a way of thinking, as a subsequent way of living (running your own brain),
cannot be "owned" by one to the exclusion of others. And, conversely,
someone can have all of the NLP books, own NLP Certifications that hang on their
walls¾ and not in their heart! They can know about running their own brain, and
not be able to actually run their own brain.
Who really owns NLP are those who learn to use the model for mastering their own
states and behaviors. They are the ones who own it in a way that doesn't deprive
anyone else. In fact, as they own it in that way ¾ it enriches everybody they
come in contact with.
"But it's My Idea! My Idea!"
Seven or eight years ago I taught a class at Mesa State College here in Grand
Junction Colorado on Habits of Effectiveness and used the book, "Seven
Habits of Highly Effective People." I liked the book, thought it had some
great ideas in it and so proposed the class to the college, and received an
okay. I even asked everybody in the class to purchase the book because I wanted
to use it as a text. Covey's book, by the way, briefly mentions NLP, and has
several NLP patterns in it. Covey also combed through hundreds of other books on
self-development for his ideas, especially the works of Benjamin Franklin.
Then one day, I received a call from the para-legal department of the Covey
Institute in Salt Lake City, Utah.
"Are you L. Michael Hall?"
Yes, I am.
"We understand you are teaching 'Seven Habits of Highly Effective People'
at Mesa State College."
Yes. That's right.
"You can't do that. This is our first warning against you, and against the
College."
Really, I didn't know the US Congress had rescinded the Constitutional
Amendment.
"What amendment?"
Well, the First Amendment to the Constitution, of course. That is what you're
talking about, right? That US citizens no longer have the right to buy a book
and spread its ideas, or use a book as a textbook for a class.
"You are not certified to train for the Covey Institute."
That's right. I know that. And that's why I am not presenting myself as doing
that. The College catalogue doesn't say that, does it?
"Well, no...."
That conversation was repeated with them two more times over the next two years.
They tried to shut down the class again and again. But it went no further than
that silly phone conversation. Why? Because in spite of what the paralegal said,
they knew that you can't copyright or trademark ideas. Not ideas. You can't even
publish a book and then put a restraining order on who can read it, who can make
a talk using the book as a text, who can present the ideas, etc. They did things
like that in the Dark Ages. They burned books in the early Renaissance period,
but those days are done and over, aren't they?
So Who Certifies and Who Gives the Right to Certify?
Ah, that's a very different matter. Certification in every society, discipline,
field, etc. is a function of organized bodies. I belong to several certifying
bodies, General Semantics, Rational Emotive Therapists, ANLP, etc. I belong to
several graduate groups as well, and some professional organizations. And, oh
yes, to the Society of Neuro-Semantics. These are associations of people united
by a common paradigm, model, etc. Sometimes it is a single charismatic leader
who unites a group, sometimes an idea, sometimes a common experience (having
been in a school, training program), and sometimes an idea and model.
Usually it is the intellectual, personal, and moral authority of individuals who
commonly recognize the person or model that collectively gives the organization
the "power" to certify. Ultimate, the power of any organization to
certify is the power of that organization to function in an effective,
compelling, believable way. This holds true for governments. When the leaders of
a government, the ideas of a government, the lifestyle, economic base, etc. of a
government no longer coheres, that government ends. It is in this way that the
Berlin Wall fell, the Soviet Union ended, etc.
Ultimately, a certification is only as good as the people who stand behind it
and the ideas, vision, and community they create to uphold it. That's why we
care about standards that reflect and manifest the Vision that we have. That's
why, in Neuro-Semantics, we have been putting our focus on the qualities and
facets of personality, on cooperation, competency, abundance, professional
respect, etc. Having seen the legacy mess of the NLP throughout the world, not
only the public law suits, but even more important, the nasty personal attacks,
insults, ego-driven competition, refusal to acknowledge each other, and abuse of
the power of the model¾ we are crystal clear that we do not want to make those
mistakes.
The original Neuro-Semantics team of myself, Bob and Keith have committed
ourselves to first and foremost be persons of our word, cooperative, honorable
in our intentions and agenda, competence in our skills, and congruent. We know
that if we don't walk our talk, then kiss it goodbye. As others have become a
part of the growing Neuro-Semantics movement, this has been the very Vision that
has drawn them. They want to be a part of a community that cares about
manifesting its model in its behavior. They know that whatever
"authority" we have to speak, to certify, to develop new patterns and
techniques, depends upon how we first "author" our lives.
The legal aspect of any certification in any particular name or term depends, of
course, on which government grants the trademark and the specific laws in that
nation about trademarks. In the USA, nobody owns a trademark on NLP. I'm told
that Richard Bandler owns (or did own) a trademark on the insignia of "The
Society of NLP." I know the person who owns the Trademark for "The
Society of NLP" in the UK and it is not Bandler.
Modeling Culture / Creating Culture
There's numerous reasons why several of us in Neuro-Semantics have moved into
sociology (social psychology) to model cultures and to identify the meta-frames
(memes, if you will) of a society. We want to do it to apply the NLP and NS
models to modeling the most efficient and effective form of associating. And
we're doing that in order to create a legacy that we can all be proud of. I've
been studying multiple social models for how to develop and create the kind of
culture that will support the spread and validity of the NS movement.
If we can and do call personal and subjective realities into being by our words
and actions, by the frames we set and the "reality" strategies we
apply to things, this happens even more so when groups of people do it.
Culturally, a collective consciousness arises as people associate for higher
purposes to achieve some outcome. Then, a thing "is" or becomes real
to us as we declare it real. In the construction of social realities, we
designate functions and status and function-statuses via our declarative words
and rituals. It's in this way that we develop a culture from our community.
Summary
What does all this leave us? It highlights that the concept of
"Ownership" has numerous meanings.
1) It can mean control over a term or phrase (a Trademark) and the power to do
business under that trade or service mark. Those who own such a trademark can
assert that right. Currently, in the USA and UK no individual so
"owns" the term NLP.
2) It can refer to owning an idea, concept, model in the sense of truly owning
it personally in ones minds and emotions. In this sense, NLP is truly free to be
owned by whoever wants it and is willing to engage in the adventure of learning
and incorporating it.
3) It can refer to an association, community, society, or group of people united
around a common idea, purpose, vision, person, etc. In this sense, lots of
groups and associations "own" the right to certify in NLP in many
countries around the world. In this sense also there is no International body
that has exclusive rights over NLP. It is free to any and every association who
wants to do business, who has the personal and/or moral authority to do so, who
can sell, influence, and persuade others, and who has taken whatever legal steps
necessary.
The Bottom Line?
No one owns NLP. It's been turned loose in the world. Those who certify in the
name of NLP do so because they are recognized by a sufficient number of people
to do so. In a few countries around the world, there are people who own a
trademark for NLP. In those countries, those people have the legal right to do
business under the banner of "NLP." But that certainly doesn't stop or
prohibit the model developed by Bandler and Grinder, Dilts and Gorden, Leslie
Bandler and Judith DeLozier and all of the other contributors from being taught
throughout the world.
What we're doing in Neuro-Semantics is forging a new path for community,
culture, and legacy. We have taken the necessary legal actions necessary to
Trademark it in the USA, many of our associates have applied for trademark in
various other countries. Yet that isn't the key¾ the key lies in the kind of
people we are, the kind of people we are together, the kind and quality of
community we're creating, the vision that directs and guides us as a
self-organizing attractor, and the personal authority that we're developing in
walking our talk.
May you find yourself truly owning the power and magic in NLP and NS¾ so that
it transforms you day by day, bringing out your best, touching you with magic,
and positively touching the lives of those you meet.
Special Note added February 6, 2001:
Apparently the legal battles are not over, word has it that Bandler has appealed
the $600,000 judgment for Chris Hall. And so the drama continues.
Endnotes:
1. From the United States Library of Congress, Copyright Office, Washington DC
What is not Protected by Copyright?
* Works that have not been fixed in a tangible form of expression.
* Titles, names, short phrases, and slogans; familiar symbols or designs: mere
variations of typographic ornamentation, lettering, or coloring; mere listings
of ingredients or contents.
* Ideas, procedures, methods, systems, processes, concepts, principles,
discoveries, or devices as distinguished from a description, explanation or
illustration.
* Works consisting entirely of information that is common property or containing
no original authorship.
What Works are Protected:
Copyright protection exists for "original works of authorship" when
they becomes fixed in a tangible form of expression.
From the U.S. Department of Commerce: Patent and Trademark Office
What is a trademark? It is a word, phrase, symbol, or design, or combination of
words, phrases, symbols or designs, which identifies and distinguishes the
source of the goods or services... There are two related but distinct types of
rights in a mark: the right to register and the right to use.
2. If you go to the Web Site of ANLP, you might want to click on the page that
has a graphic file of the court document. You will find this document at:
http://www.anlp.org/imagepage1.htm. While this page is difficult to read, it
does raises questions about what's happening in the UK and whether Bandler,
McKenna, Breen and others are seeking to "own" NLP, if they are trying
to shut down others, or what's going on. Personally, I don't have a clue (just
lots of guesses).
Because the future of NLP affects us all, I'd recommend that you inquire about
this at the alt.psychology.nlp newsgroup for an NLP discussion group where these
matters are openly discussed among NLPers from all around the world. And simply
raise these and other questions that you have about it. There's nothing like an
open public forum to keep things on the up and up and for a community to police
itself.