Intellectual Property Management - How Safe Is Your IP
Intellectual property refers to intangible assets that are often the product of your creative mind, like innovative ideas, new designs, drawings, artwork and so on. It also includes logos, photos, symbols, images, names, products and the like. The preparation and negotiation of agreements with VARs and contract service providers designed to protect trade secrets, and litigation services associated with trade secret disputes.
Particularly if you intend commercialising your intellectual property and turning it into a valuable business asset, in which case knowing your IP rights and how to effectively and efficiently manage your IP portfolio is hugely important. Many companies in fact spend a lot of money monitoring social media sites and the like to ensure that their brand names, images, products and various other forms of intellectual property are not being stolen or used in ways that could impact negatively on the company’s image.
A well-managed IP strategy makes a significant difference to the valuation of a company’s IP assets. Intellectual property management and the protection of IP rights will make a significant difference to the company’s overall performance.
In entering a new market, registration of trademarks and patents, designs to protect the company’s product and services is likely to be more significant than enforcement against IP infringers. When it comes to commercial IP, even protecting it by law in one country is no guarantee that it will be safe from theft or unauthorised use in another country unless it’s been protected internationally.
So how do you go about commercialising, protecting and managing your IP
portfolio? First of all, identify your IP assets and review your IP portfolio regularly. Don’t focus on patents only, think about your confidential information, your trade secrets, trademarks, copyrights and anything else that is uniquely associated with your business. Things like business processes, financial and technical know how, moulds, customer lists, drawings, designs and even articles you’ve written may all qualify for IP protection.
Educate yourself about things like patents, trademarks, copyrights and trade secrets. Learn how these IP assets can work to your benefit and how you can extract commercial value out of your IP portfolio. Identify international markets and competitors and consider an international IP strategy to protect your intellectual property overseas and get yourself up to speed with existing international best practice in managing IP.
White Paper IP Helps Manage Your Intellectual Property
If all this sounds like a daunting task, commercial law firm Law Down Under have put together a white paper that covers a number of important issues around intellectual property management and protection. The paper has been written in house by their IP lawyers and export specialists who focus on counseling companies and structuring transactions involving technology and intangible property of all types. The white paper IP Intellectual Property Management can be downloaded for free.
