Theft of Intellectual Property (IP) is surprisingly common, so I f you haven’t taken steps to protect your logo, designs, trade marks or copyrighted material, there may be nothing you can do to prevent others using it. Here are ten tips to help protect your Intellectual Property:

1.) Ensure you are protected

Use expert agents who are legal experts in IP to ensure that any trade mark you create is properly protected, and use reputable trade mark or patent lawyers with a good track record.

2.) Create a list all your IP

There is a free health check tool on the Intellectual Property Office website to enable you to compile a list. This is useful to ensure that you have a procedure in place to assess and account for your IP, from trade marks and copyrights and designs, to patents and domain names.

3.) Register in good time

Registration of a new idea takes time to go through due process, and it can take up to 18 months to get a UK patent granted. Under a new scheme you can have your UK patent fast-tracked if you already have international approval, reducing the waiting time to two months. Getting a trade mark usually takes about six months to register.

4.) Keep evidence of your IP development

Keep file dated and signed copies of drawings and drafts because it’s essential to keep a log of any evidence to prove the development of your IP.

5.) Make sure your idea is new

Very early in the development of new products, logos and processes, use trade mark or patent searches to establish whether someone else has got there first and protected them.

6.) International protection or just the UK

Seek the advice of expert agents to ascertain whether you need to protect your IP overseas. If you do you will need separate international patents, design rights and trade marks to protect your IP abroad.

7.) Online theft is rife

With the growth of internet use and social networking, online theft is very easy and happens on a regular basis. For example, you post a blog or image online and someone else steals it and passes it off as their own. Use search engines to check that no one is using your copy, logo or images without your permission.

8.) Watch out for scams

To avoid falling prey to fraudsters, only deal with official bodies such as the Intellectual Property Office when making applications. They have warned that applicants and owners of UK trademarks and patents have received bogus letters from scammers demanding payment in return for registering their details.

9.) Beware of theft through contracts

Theft by external contractors is one area of exposure, so ensure all your employment and consultancy contracts clearly state your ownership of any IP developed by your company.

10.) Legal action may be necessary

Be prepared to pursue offenders for infringement if it becomes necessary. Weigh up whether taking legal action will be worth the expense, but often a strongly worded letter is enough to dispose of a potential threat.

REMEMBER!!

A company’s Intellectual Property can be a very valuable asset and everything necessary should be done to protect it.If you don’t and somebody else does, you will be using it illegally under the rules of “passing off”, and the legal owner may well pursue you to make you stop.