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Protecting Intellectual Property - A Checklist

So you’ve come up with a way to make your millions (or think you have), and now you need to make sure no-one gets their hands on your winning formula and beats you to the market, or even to the patent-office. You’ll need to know about your intellectual property rights and how to protect them. If you work for an engineering or for a technology company, you should have some best practics in place to ensure that nobody gets there hands on your data. This statement should hold true for whatever industry you work in - personal data and business information is highly sensitive and potentially extremely valuable.

The best thing to do at this point is speak to an expert in intellectual property law, such as a legal firm or team of solicitors, who will be able to advise you on the area of intellectual property most relevant to you and what exactly you have to do to protect yourself.

What is intellectual property?

Intellectual property is a set of legal rights designed to protect anyone having their original idea copied or stolen.

Be aware that simply having an idea isn’t enough. If you have an idea for a book, you won’t have intellectual property right for that idea, but you will have intellectual property rights for any words you have written for that book.

How to protect your intellectual property

There are four types of intellectual property – content, designs, patents, trademarks – and it’s vital you have the right type of protection in place.

Here’s how…

1.Get a clearance search – Before you invest your time and money into any venture, you should carry out a clearance search to make sure your chosen name, logo or product doesn’t clash with one that’s already registered. It’s advisable to get a qualified practitioner, such as those at FBC Manby Bowdler solicitors, to carry out a thorough search for you, but there’s no harm in carrying out a couple of online searches yourself first.

2.Register your intellectual property – Once you’re sure the coast is clear and no-one else has already claimed your idea, you need to register your main trading name alongside any key products, brands, and logos. For more information on this, go to GOV.UK. It’s also worth registering domain and social media names at this point.

3.Make sure your company owns the IP it uses – Unless you’re using a third party’s IP under licence, all of the IP used by your company should be owned by the company, and then when any work is given to external contractors, they can transfer their IP rights to the company so all work is owned by you. When registering IP and domain names, always try to register it in the company’s name as opposed to an individual’s, and always protect your IP before you disclose any designs or inventions to another person or business. Confidential information can no longer be protected once it is in the public domain, though you can get around this by setting up a non-disclosure agreement.

4.Register your business IP – There are four types intellectual property - content, designs, patents, and trademarks. While IP rights, such as copyright and unregistered designs are automatically granted, if you need more comprehensive design rights, patents or trademarks, you’ll have to apply and it can take time. Make sure you keep details of the creation or design process to support your claim for IP if it is ever challenged.

5.Use Trademark and Copyright notices – Although you don’t need a Trademark notice to get protection, putting one in place is a good way to deter any challenges to your IP. Similarly, it’s useful to get a Copyright notice as this is an unregistered right.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Simon Evans .