Intellectual property is an area of law that’s vitally important in the business world. If you’ve come up with a profitable idea, then much of the future value of your business might be tied up in that idea. Intellectual property law might help you prevent other businesses from stepping in to steal those ideas and profit from them.
Understanding Intellectual Property
The nature of intellectual property might vary tremendously from business to business. You might have developed a new and revolutionary kind of tin opener, or written a screenplay with a compelling premise.
Legally speaking, different sorts of intellectual property enjoy different sorts of protection. For example, an invention is protected by a patent – which is a legal right to decide who can build the invention. Then there is copyright, which covers works of art, and trademarks, which provide consumers with a means of distinguishing one business, service or product from another.
There are also other, more specific protections enjoyed by geographical regions. The most famous examples concern food and drink: wines, cheeses, oils and hams that are associated with a particular region might benefit from a Protected Designation of Origin, which means that they alone can be marketed using the name of the region in question. If your wine isn’t made in Champagne, for example, you can’t call it Champagne.
Identifying Intellectual Property Risks
So, why do we have intellectual property? To understand the answer, we might consider the harms that occur when intellectual property law is violated. The business that holds the IP might suffer directly, through loss of custom. A customer who has bought a pirated copy of a film might be less inclined to buy the genuine article. Consumers might also be harmed, since they risk ending up with an inferior product.
In cases where this possibility is sufficiently remote, a court might not find that an IP has been infringed. For example, the rapper Dr Dre tried to prevent a gynaecologist called Dr Drai from trading under the name. The authorities in the US decided that there was minimal risk of the public confusing the two, since they operated in very different industries.
The Role of Intellectual Property Solicitors
Protecting the IP of your business often requires highly specialised legal expertise. IP solicitors will not only help to fight your business’s corner in a court of law; they’ll also assist in the registration of patents and trademarks, conduct thorough searches to prevent you from inadvertently violating the intellectual property of others, and draft contracts and agreements that clearly define the parameters by which you’re allowing others to use your intellectual property.
Cost-Benefit Analysis
Of course, this kind of legal specialist will often charge a heavy fee for their services. But these costs are often vastly outweighed by the cost of leaving your IP up for grabs. A good IP lawyer will provide the kind of advice that might make the difference between your business protecting its IP and failing to do so; given this, the expense is often easily justified.