INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY STRATEGY FOR START-UPS AND SMALL BUSINESSES

Initial years of technology and brand-centered startups are vital because both an efficient, judicious use of resources and also the minor decisions taken in those years can help with mitigating mistakes and ensuring long-term viability.

Among the several factors on which the success of a startup depends, intellectual property protection is one of the most critical ones. For any startup working on developing a new technology or a product or a brand, it’s imperative to file for intellectual property protection.

Importance of IP Protection for startups and small businesses:

• Intellectual property issues are essential considerations in the beginning. A  startup will face numerous problems involving developing a product, hiring qualified employees, raising capital, and more.  But without a proper IP strategy, all of those efforts and expense can be wasted, with others reaping the rewards of the start-up’s investment.
• Intellectual property is one of the most valuable assets of a startup. IP protection puts legal checks on your competition, preventing others from infringing on and profiting from your valuable property, whether your customer goodwill based on your brandname or your property technology or formulas.
• IP protection also gives a competitive advantage, a factor of utmost importance to the world of startups, where competitors differentiate themselves in part based on patented technologies or trademarked brands.
• A sound IP strategy from the beginning can also help attract investors, suppliers, partners, and more because a patent or trademark offers more security with any potential success.
• A sound patent and trademark strategy also helps protect startups from infringement and unfair competition claims against them.

Mentioned below are some of the important Intellectual property strategies to implement. You can get in touch with David Page Law and the firm’s global team of proficient attorneys for any legal assistance with filing for IP protection.

Evaluate your intellectual property, branding, and technologies, and ascertain the type of protection you need:

Many startups avoid investing in intellectual property protection, and they end up forfeiting the IP rights by ignoring the urgent need to protect their innovations. Critically evaluating the unique competitive advantages of the company and the intellectual property assets associated with these critical advantages will help in safeguarding the company’s core assets.

Following are the types of intellectual property services available:

PATENTS

DESIGN PATENTS

TRADEMARKS

COPYRIGHTS

SERVICE MARKS

CONFIDENTIALITY AGREEMENTS

INVENTIONS AND TRADE SECRETS AGREEMENTS

NON-COMPETITION AND NON-CIRCUMVENTION AGREEMENTS

Patent strategy:

Patents are valuable and expensive assets of the company. A startup must remember to file for patent protection for every update or modification made on the technology. Spending extraordinarily high amount or nothing, both can be a grave mistake that might come in the way of your success but developing a wide-ranging patent can be time-consuming, expensive, and they have a slim chance of providing a  return on investment in the short term. Similarly, filing a large number of cheap but poorly drafted patents won’t create any value for startups.

You can follow these practices for patent protection:

• Seek patents directed to the core value of your innovation.
• Seek patent claims that can be monitored.

Another crucial aspect that start-ups tend to overlook when devising patent strategy is the international standards for protection. If a startup is planning on expanding their business to global markets, but while filing patents, they did not consider the international standards, it will result in international application timeframes lapsing, barring a company from international protection.

Defying the odds and surviving the cutthroat competition without any severe financial blunder is essential for a startup to be able to stand its ground. Adequately protecting the IP from the beginning is one way to safeguard the organization from any legal issues and clearing the path for success. If you need any legal assistance with developing an effective and cost-effective IP protection strategy or filing for patent or trademark protection, you can reach out to David Page Law and its team of international attorneys, providing legal counsel to businesses and individuals in a broad variety of domains, from litigation, business lawyering, intellectual property, international regulatory counseling, and more, with the firm’s client-oriented lawyering and transparent pricing.