Protecting Your Business Intellectual Property

A company’s most valuable assets may not be physical. This book shows how to protect them without fences or security guards!You can’t touch it or feel it. Sometimes you can’t even see it. Yet, intellectual property continues to soar in value, comprising an increasingly greater portion of a typical company’s assets. In the age of instant global communication, understanding what intellectual property is, how to protect it, and how to enhance its value are prerequisites for corporate survival.Enter attorney Deborah E. Bouchoux and her informative book, Protecting Your Company’s Intellectual Property. Packed with fascinating and illuminating examples, this book is a succinct, yet comprehensive discussion of the four key areas of intellectual property: trademarks,copyrights, patents, and trade secrets. In addition to defining these areas (for instance, did you know that customer lists and marketing plans are protectable trade secrets?), the book offers practical tools for protecting intellectual property, including:Trademark and copyright application formsSample employment agreementsAn Internet usage policyTips on preventing unauthorized dissemination of information via the WebA guide for conducting an IP auditAnd much, much more.

A comprehensive training program that improves the knowledge and skills required for successful patent applications.

Intellectual Property (IP) is often a company’s single most valuable asset. And yet IP is hard to value, widely misunderstood and frequently under-exploited. IP accounts for an estimated $5trn of GDP in the US alone. It covers patents, trademarks, domain names, copyrights, designs and trade secrets. Unsurprisingly, companies zealously guard their own ideas and challenge the IP of others. Damages arising from infringements have fostered a sizeable claims industry. But IP law is complex, and the business, financial and legal issues around it are difficult to navigate. Court decisions and interpretation of IP laws can be unpredictable, and can dramatically change the fortunes of businesses that rely on their IP – as demonstrated in the pharmaceutical industry’s battle with generic drugs. This comprehensive guide to intellectual property will help companies, investors, and creative thinkers understand the scope and nature of IP issues, pose the right questions to their advisers and maximize the value from this crucial intangible asset.

A brand is more than a snazzy logo – but what else is there to consider when building a brand? Do you really need a brand for business success? And what has intellectual property got to do with anything? A strong, authentic brand is what makes your business stand out from the crowd – and what drives long term success. But the branding industry can be an overwhelming minefield, full of conflicting advice and multiple disciplines – so how do you navigate your way through the process? That’s where Brand Tuned comes in. With the step-by-step TUNED methodology, you will: • define your brand to drive the business forward and help it stand out • know what brand promise will attract your ideal client • pick a name that will put you “front of mind” • ensure that the design elements you choose are distinctive and ‘ownable’ • train your team to live the brand. Drawing from evidence-based research, interviews with experts, and years of experience supporting businesses, Brand Tuned is the first branding guide written by an intellectual property lawyer who specialises in trademarks and brands. By incorporating the principles of intellectual property law right from the start of the process, branding expert Shireen Smith will show you how to create and build the brand that is right for you and your business – while avoiding the potential pitfalls. Shireen Smith is an intellectual property lawyer specialising in trademarks and brands, with years of experience in marketing small businesses. Her TUNED framework is designed to guide you to create a brand that attracts sales for the long term.

Everybody wants to think of a great idea that will make them rich. A good indication that you have a great idea is that someone copies it, but by then it can be too late. This is too bad as a lot of the knowhow to protect your ideas is free but buried in a mass of detail and exceptions which most people put in the "too hard" basket. Some IP protection you must pay for, such as trademarks but it is well worth it, provided it is done properly

What do you do if … you need to seek a court order against a former employee who has set up in competition with you, having first helped themselves to your customer database? … Or if you are deluged with complainants who have bought products they thought were yours, but turn out to have been made from inferior materials and without your knowledge or consent? … Or if you receive a solicitor's letter complaining that a product you are about to launch infringes their client's trade mark or registered design? Jane Lambert's concise and practical guide gives you the knowledge that you need to make crucial decisions to protect your intellectual assets before it is too late. It should be kept close at hand for use in emergencies, just like a first aid manual. Its purpose is to alert you to problems so that you can take the right steps to manage them, in consultation with your professional advisors, before they develop into crises. And, if the worst does happen and you need to go to law, the guide provides you with the information you need to understand the process, the risks and how to prepare effectively. If you are planning an enforcement strategy, looking for the optimum patent or registered trade mark or design protection and to secure the appropriate insurance to make sure you have a fund available to enforce these, then this book is for you. If you're already in hot water, someone with an intellectual property problem who needs to make fast decisions in very little time, then this book is for you too. It could help you avoid the most expensive mistake of your life.

This is the eBook version of the printed book. This Element is an excerpt from The Truth About Starting a Business (9780137144501), by Bruce R. Barringer. Available in print and digital formats. Failing to protect your intellectual property can destroy your business. Learn how to keep it from happening to you. Imagine you’ve started a business to produce a new type of smoke alarm specifically for kitchens. It’s similar to other smoke alarms but is more capable of detecting a kitchen fire than any alarm on the market. You’ve named it “Kitchen Sentry.” Your tagline is “We Protect Cooks and Kitchens.” You just acquired the Internet domain name www.kitchensentryfirmalarm.com. Fortunately, while you were developing your product, you....

Counterfeit products represent a growing problem for a wide range of industries. There are many estimates of the size of this problem most of which coalesce around $500-billion annually on a global basis. Overall, a wide range of industries agree that there is a severe problem with the global protection of intellectual property rights (IPR), yet, there have been virtually no attempts to describe all aspects of the problem. This book aims at giving the most complete description of various characteristics of the intellectual property rights (IPR) environment in a global context. The authors believe a holistic understanding of the problem must include consumer complicity to purchase counterfeit, actions of the counterfeiters (pirates) as well as actions (or inaction) by home and host governments, and the role of international organizations and industry alliances. Only after establishing how all the actors in the IPR environment relate to one another can we describe global protection of the intellectual property rights environment and the managerial response of IPR owners and/or industry associations to combat this ongoing problem. The book concludes with pragmatic recommendations for protecting intellectual property given the recent trends discussed in the previous chapters, making it of interest to practitioners and policy-makers alike.