Intellectual Property Law:   

Terms for Intellectual property:

Marketplace recognition: increasing the identity of your business’ customer services or products over your competitors.

Eg.  McDonald’s, KFC , Coco Cola,  Nike and Adidas etc.

Finance security: IP assets are used for protection in financing transactions for businesses.

Eg. Walt Disney, Calvin Klein, 20th Century Fox, and DreamWorks. 

Revenue streams: agreement for the use of IP assets by third parties will provide a continual profit for investments.

IPOs and business sales: Known as Initial Public Offering or IPO, this is a successful method of protecting your IP portfolio and they are essential for the increase in value of sales for your business.

Independent value: IP assets can have its own independent value and be sold on its own. Eg. Coca-Cola ribbon device trade mark is worth US$1 billion. 

IP can be used diversely depending on your IP asset and the requirements of your business.

What is intellectual property? Intellectual property (IP) is the ‘property of the mind’. It takes many forms but is an essential part of a business’ assets — one which can result in a significant advantage in today’s increasingly competitive market.  Intellectual property consists of the following forms:

 

1.     Copyright

2.     Trademarks, company logos

3.     Patents

4.     Designs

5.     Confidential information and trade secrets

IP is an essential asset of a business that will assist in strengthening your business. 

 2. I have Intellectual Property — so how do I protect it? You have determined your business has Intellectual Property, but, you are unsure as to how they can be protected.

 

1.     You need to ensure your own assets fit the requirements for the protection of your IP assets. Some IP protection is automatic on its establishment, such as copyright. However others such as trademarks should be registered for protection as these are confidential information. These are protected by contract and management initiatives.

2.     You need to identify how your IP is currently being used both by you and other parties. How you use and let others use your IP is also important in the development of the appropriate protection scheme. Too often, businesses do not know how to sufficiently manage their IP assets,  within their own organisation or by other parties. Protections include the development of internal policies to control the use of IP assets within your organisation as well as strengthening and monitoring contractual arrangements with third parties using your IP assets.

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