HOW DO I PROTECT MY IP?

Useful commercial guidance on what to consider when starting a new business or launching a new product range extension for an established business.

By Joel Barry

Are you a start up business developing intellectual property (IP) and want to protect it? Unsure where to begin or what pitfalls to avoid? Here’s how to understand the process for protecting IP, and how to look after it from the beginning. 

IP protection includes copyrights, patents and trademarks which protect your work. Although some IP must be applied for, as with patents and trademarks, unregistered copyrights are in place for all creations (design, brand, content, etc.) from the moment they are created.

A business, should put trademark protection in place early as a rule. This avoids legal problems and protects the brand in the future should a competitor business intend to use the same or a similar trade mark for a similar product or service. ‍

‍As a start-up, you may be thinking, ‘I have this idea and want to protect it to the fullest’. As a starting point, there are only two ways to protect a pure idea - you could keep it secret but that’s not much good for commercialising it. The other way is to protect an invention as a whole with a patent. You should apply for the patent and put a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) on whatever widget you intend to create when looking for partners, finance, suppliers etc. If you don’t, you could risk invalidating any later patent application you wish to make. 

Moving beyond the pure idea as your project develops, you will have some unregistered rights that are in place automatically on the creation or development of the project and/or through launching it publicly. These rights include copyright and unregistered design rights. Once you have a trading reputation you will automatically gain unregistered trademarks. In short, you will get some unregistered rights which arise just out of running your business but stronger registered rights have to be applied for.

For more information intellectual property, contact:

joel@ceclegal.co.uk