In the present highly competitive environment, if you have a brilliant piece of an idea holding immense potential for revolutionizing your industry, then all you need to do is build your business now before someone else out there does the same. So, let us now make ourselves familiar with ten smart ways using which you can protect your Intellectual Property (IP) assets and prevent them from becoming someone else’s success story.
- Know and Understand What your IP Assets Exactly Are – All the business firms, organizations, startups, and even individuals need to have a piece of in-depth knowledge and understanding of their IP assets, which can be anything ranging from company names, drawings, designs, logos, slogans, innovations, product names, and so on.
- Documents your Unique Idea in the Form of Plans, Drawings, and Descriptions – By including these detailed plans in your overall Intellectual Property Protection strategy, you can efficiently prove the ownership of your ideas. Besides, it is imperative to file all these plans in a dated document. It shall help you significantly in proving that you came up with the idea first in the scenario where a third person tries to claim it.
- Go Ahead with Filing a Provisional Patent Application for your Invention – By doing the same, you can warn your competitors that your innovation or invention has the ‘patent pending’ tag. If in case, you haven’t formulated your full innovation or are yet to work out on its features, designs, or specifications, then you can file a Provisional Patent Application and file the Non-Provisional one after making the required changes.
- Don’t Share your Ideas and Related Details with Everyone – Although most of the people out there won’t steal your ideas and innovations, it is always better to be safe than to be sorry. It is highly advisable not to discuss your unique ideas with a person you don’t know or can’t trust.
- Don’t get too much worried while sharing your Concept with Investors – There’s no need to worry too much while sharing your ideas or concepts with the investors as they have their reputations to protect. Furthermore, they’ll always go into the intricate details before deciding to invest in your innovation. However, you must, at all times, worry about the possible partners and potential employees, who give you a bad gut feeling.
- Follow Up on Business Conversations Through Emails – If you are in talks about your business concept or idea with someone and he or she tries to steal it, then you may have a hard time proving that you discussed the same with him or her. To prevent this kind of situation from occurring, you must use emails and have a dated and electronic account of all your conversations in hand.
- Sign Non-Disclosure Agreements with Employees and Associates -You must sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) with the concerned employees and associates before discussing the critical details of your concept or idea.
- Use the ‘TM’ Trademark Designation Before Registering a Trademark – You don’t necessarily need to register your trademark for using the ‘TM’ designation; however, for doing the same, you first need to prove that your brand name, slogan, logo, and other distinguishing traits belong to you.
- Know your Copyright Related Rights – Copyright Protection applies to all the creative works such as articles, books, artwork, songs, to name a few. So, it is crystal clear that you can’t obtain copyright protection for your company’s name or slogan – you need Trademark Protection for the same. Copyright protection extends to all your creative works recorded in a tangible form, like a song recorded or a book written.
- Don’t Be Too Afraid to Talk about your Unique Concept – For building a successful business and setting your unique concept in motion, you will require taking advice and input from others. The odds of someone stealing your concept or idea are pretty low; however, you must be careful at all times to prevent the issues of Intellectual Property Infringement or theft from taking place.