Intellectual property is probably the most valuable asset of your business today, especially if you belong to the creative industry.
In this age of increasing imitation and infringement, it is essential for creative professionals to protect their intellectual property to safeguard their brands and designs.
Intellectually property is everything that you design and create from the name of your brand, the names of your products, your creations, your designs, to things that you’ve written or made or produced.
Thinking that your intellectual property is safe or that protecting your intellectual property is not very important for your business or that it can be done later is one of the biggest mistakes you can make as a creative enterprise.
With the rise in the number of creative thefts, protection of intellectual property has become a part of the business plan for a lot of creative businesses.
For those who are sure that they’re safe or don’t know where to get started, there are quite a few free tools and applications out there that can familiarize you with the whole concept of protecting your intellectual property.
They can help you identify the assets that you need to protect before you get into the legal process of actually getting it done.
Multiple owners
Legally, you are the owner of your intellectual property only if you have created it and have protected it with a copyright or a patent; if you have legally purchased the intellectual property rights from previous owners or creators; or if you have a brand this is a trademark.
It is essential to understand that intellectual property can be sold or transferred, that multiple people can own it, and that it can belong to individuals or business.
Protecting your intellectual property is a must
Protecting your intellectual property is essential because it gives you the power to take legal action against those who have or will steal or copy your intellectual property.
Certain types of protection are automatically available to you by the virtue of being the creator of the intellectual property concerned, but there are various other types of protection that you need to apply for.
The types of protection of intellectual property that you can apply for depends on the nature of what you’ve created.
For example, if your intellectual property includes writings, art, literary works, photographs, designs, sound recordings, etc. copyrights as a way of protection are automatically available to you (designs are protected by design rights).
However, there are other types of protections that you need to apply for.
For instance, if your intellectual property consists of logos and names, you should be applying for trademarks; if your intellectual property includes designing product appearances like packaging and patterns, you should get your designs registered.
And if your intellectual property includes inventions like medicines, tools or machines, you should be applying for patents.
Whether or not to invest in protecting your intellectual property is not an easy decision, but think of this way, if you think your creation, however big or small, is good enough to be copied, then it is worth protecting.
As a creative person/business, there is no point understanding the importance of protecting your intellectual property only after it’s been stolen or copied, because there’s almost nothing that you can do about it then, but sadly that’s when most creative thinkers realize it.
If you’re investing so much of your creativity, time, effort and money in creating something, it makes a lot of sense to invest a little in protecting it.