Intellectual Property and Why you Should Protect it
In the Information Economy, ideas can be worth millions. However, many ideas die out an early stage, when inventors do not have the resources to put ideas into action or test them. That is where intellectual property protections, such as patents, can come in very useful. In the United States, many individuals have ideas, yet lack resources. By “Patenting” their ideas, and the utility that they provide, they ensure that when they do advertise their idea to the public, or if it is used by a larger, richer and more powerful competitor, they will be able to restrict its use and claim royalties from such usage. These laws can be especially useful where smaller entities are worried about bringing their ideas to the public, for fear of being imitated by a more powerful competitor.
There are Intellectual Property (IP) regimes across the world, including within the European Union (European Patent Office or EPO), China, the GCC (UAE, Dubai, Bahrain and elsewhere via the GCC patent office), and ofcourse the United States, Canada, or elsewhere in the Americas. Most regions have a patent protection, and IP regulatory system. One can also file an international patent as well, as a result of the patent cooperation treaty, but it will have to be filed separately in each country where the inventor is seeking patent protection, in the “international format” specified under the treaty.
Patents, Trademarks and Copyright
Patents generally protect ideas or concepts, and once filed, represent a distinct form of protection for a specifically defined and described idea. These ideas can usually relate to a functional product or service (utility patent), which protects a certain “way of doing,” or the specific ornamental design of a product or item (design patent). Trademarks on the other hand, protect specific marks, logos or labels, identifying products and services, owned by individuals or companies. These can be registered with a trademark office which is usually distinct from a patent office. Finally, a copyright, is a unique artistic work, (i.e. a painting or drawing), design, educational work/literature, or creative literary concept (such as a play, books or movie script). The copyright registration protects such a work of art from being used by others without authorization.
How to Protect IP, if you Decide not to Register a Patent, Trademark or Copyright
Most websites will contain a disclaimer protecting the images, ideas and other “IP” contained therein. This will generally aim to protect all the content on the website from reproduction by other parties. In addition, most business deals will also prohibit disclosure, use or duplication of “trade secrets” disclosed to another party. Trade secrets are confidential ideas relevant to the trade and business activities of an entity. Therefore, contracts and disclaimers can be quite useful for protecting unregistered intellectual property.
If you do want to make your IP public, it would be good to know that though you may be unable to prevent its duplication or imitation once its disclosed publicly (without IP registration or legal protections), by its public disclosure, you can generally prevent others from registering the idea, mark, or art. This is because your public disclosure or use of the IP will become “prior art” or a “first use in commerce” (priority use). Any patent, trademark or copyright filing must generally be for an original work, logo or idea, and not for one that is already in public existence, or already used by another entity in commerce (e.g. publicly used for commercial purposes). Therefore, by disclosing your idea to the public and making use of it publicly, such as via advertising, you should prevent its subsequent registration as IP, by a competitor in the future. However, if you keep your idea secret, and a competitor then registers the idea separately on their own, after their own research, they will then take ownership of the IP.
IP is quite a vast and complicated field of law, which has many implications for small, medium and large business owners alike. It can help level the playing field between large corporations and small entrepreneurs, by allowing small business to protect their most valuable ideas from duplication by larger corporations. Therefore, knowing how to protect your IP can be crucial to your business success in the information age!
(for questions on IP do feel free to get in touch at info@borderlesscounsel.com. The article above contains general information related to the concept of intellectual property alone, and not any specific legal advice related to the laws of any country or region).