Intellectual property practices can be a confusing subject, especially for someone new to the entire term. Even though the term can be confusing intellectual property shouldn’t be. There are four different ways to protect your intellectual property including trademarks, patents, trade secrets and copyrights. These are all used regularly, in fact USPTO issued over 300,000 patents in the year 2016 alone. Read below to learn more about intellectual property practices and what they can do for you.
Protection
Your brand is not automatically protected as many people think it is. You should still always register a trademark and logo with the Intellectual Property Office. Doing this protects your logo or trademark since there’s a good chance someone has one that is similar to yours. Once you get protection, it is important to know how long that protection lasts. Not all protection is forever, as deign patents, for example, are only good for 14 years.
Who Owns What
Every single company owns intellectual property. Many business owners are not aware of this, but knowing this bit of information helps business owners follow intellectual property practices to protect what they have. Proper protection goes a long way in protecting what’s important to your business.
What is Does
Patents give you monopoly protection. This allows you to produce your product for this long and provides an upper hand in the legal department should anyone decide to challenge your product or sue you.
Competitors
Knowing your competitors is important for those just starting up and those companies that have been in business a while. Local business databases are a good place to start to find out information on your competitors. Research and learn the brand names they have and what intellectual property they have.
Homework
Do you homework and research. This can be a time consuming task, but it is going to be beneficial to your company. If you don’t know where to start, then start your search online. There are vast amounts of useful information that you can find if you take the time to search. Consider searching the IPO website to search for current trademarks and logos of other companies.
Intellectual property practices can be confusing at first, but with some research it will begin to make sense. Things such as the patent process and copyright process begin to make more sense with a little research. Take time do your homework, and remember whenever you are in doubt, there are always experienced professionals to help you through the process. Patent lawyers have experience and know the ins and outs of the process, so if worse comes to worse, you can never go wrong with a professional.