IP rights or Intellectual Property rights are the rights given to a person over the creation or invention of his intellect. These rights are enforced by a court through a lawsuit and it includes copyrights, trademark, patents and trade secrets. The main objective of IP rights is to encourage innovation without holding the fear of a competitor stealing a unique idea and taking credit for it.
When we come to IP infringement – any breach of IP rights, in general, is called as IP infringement. IP rights are infringed when a specific work covered by IP laws is copied, used or exploited without the owner’s consent. Below are examples of IP infringement.
- Piracy – Unauthorized copying, use, propagation or recreation of assets covered by IP rights
- Counterfeiting – imitating a genuine and real product to inferior and poor quality products with a motive to make use of the superior value of the original product.
All businesses own IP and it’s a sign of skill and invention. Protecting your unique idea or invention should be a priority on the agenda especially while dealing overseas. You might’ve spent years in developing your brand/product for it to be suddenly devalued or lost through theft causing severe damage to your business. Here are few ideas to help you avoid falling prey to fraudsters.
1. A simple audit:
Make sure that you add a clause in your business plan for IP assets. You should know what IP you own; hence conducting a simple audit will help you recognize both registered and unregistered ones. An audit doesn’t have to be a complicated one, but you can simply note down all the copyrights, trademarks, and designs that you may have.
If you have purchased any IP from others such as images, music or designs – make sure that you’ve all the evidence of permission or ownership for using them.
Be sure to plan and set up a procedure to access your IP from design to domain names. To organize your IP you can use IP Healthcheck tool on the website for Intellectual Property Office.
If you develop a product or process make it a practice to maintain a log of evidence that records the entire development process. For instance, you can secure signed and dated copies of related drawings, letters or other articles. It’ll be easy for you to go back and gather the evidence for IP rights in case of any legal proceedings against you.
2. Register your brand:
There are different types of protection that you can take to cover your IP. For instance, some companies would’ve registered their company or domain name but might’ve missed registering their brand as a trademark. This is straightforward and some companies might think that they are too small to get affected by the infringement. However, all companies regardless of their size should remember and understand the risk of accidentally breaching on others.
In order to avoid infringing on others, you can check for the originality of IP assets that you own. It will save you a lot of time and energy in the long run. You can consult with a patent or trademark attorney early in the process of developing a new product/process/design.
This simple practice will help you confirm whether someone had already arrived and secured the idea before you could. A patent or trademark attorney will do the necessary checks and ensure that your idea is thorough and is new indeed.
3. The legal distinction of IP worldwide and scam emails:
The legal standing for IP differs from country to country. For instance, if you export products, you need to understand these differences and accordingly devise your business strategy. So, if you need to protect your IP overseas then you’ll need separate international trademarks, patent, and design right. It’s always safe to get professional help from a trademark and/or patent attorney at the earliest possible.
Recently, the IPO has warned applicants of fake letters/emails from scammers demanding payment as a penalty for using their information. Hence, while making an application it is safe to deal only with official bodies such as IPO or registered patent/trademark attorneys to avoid falling victim to fraudsters.