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Last updated on: June 6, 2023
Intellectual Property (IP) rights are a key business asset that in many cases will determine the value and future of your brand. There are various kinds of IP rights, all of which have their own particular methods of creation and protection. In today’s age, it is important for people to be aware of intellectual property rights and have them may intersect with both their professional and personal lives.
So, what are intellectual property rights? Why are they important? How can you protect your intellectual property? And what approach should businesses take to their intellectual property? In this blog, we’ll be exploring what intellectual property rights are and how you can protect them, by highlighting a few topics including:
Intellectual property rights are legal rights given to the inventor or creator in order to protect the invention or creation for a period of time. These IP rights serve to protect the content and give the rights owner legal recourse to pursue any infringers in the courts.
There are various kinds of intellectual property rights. The four main types of IP rights that you are likely to come across are patents, trademarks, copyrights, and trade secrets. Each of these rights allows the registered owner to protect various kinds of intangible assets.
Protecting your intellectual property is a constant process that requires you to be proactive, vigilant, and resourceful. Here are a few of the most important steps you can take to protect your intellectual property.
First, and foremost, you must register your intellectual property. This is the most reliable way to get legal protection for your creation, invention, secret, process, or work of art. By registering your IP you will safeguard it from potential scammers and bad actors.
The registration process depends on the type of content you wish to protect and where you want to protect it. In the United States you have to register patents and trademarks in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. This will confer protection on your intellectual property throughout the United States for a specified amount of time. Copyrights are registered at the U.S. Copyright Office.
Most nations will have equivalent bodies that will allow you to register your intellectual property for a fee. Trade secrets are the outlier, as they need no formal registration to be legally protected. The most common and effective way to protect trade secrets is via non-disclosure agreements (NDAs).
A common way to protect intellectual property rights is to monitor and track any IP infringers online. The digital world is occupied by thousands of bad actors intent on stealing and misusing the intellectual property of legitimate businesses.
One way to protect your IP is by keeping a good eye on whether it is being reproduced, distributed, and used in ways that you did not authorize online. For many businesses, this will mean monitoring marketplaces, social media, online forums, and other websites. This can be a time-consuming task but it may prove vital to safeguarding your IP.
Intellectual property is a legal issue that is best handled by legal experts. One of the best steps you take as a business is to acquire the services of an IP lawyer. They will be able to give you the best advice to help you manage and protect your intellectual property rights.
They will also be valuable resources if you ever need to send a cease and desist letter to a potential infringer or if you need to begin legal action. By having an IP lawyer you will hopefully be able to deter any potential infringers through robust IP management processes and a proactive approach to IP protection.
Red Points protects the intellectual property of over 1,200 companies with a variety of solutions all designed to safeguard your brand, takedown bad actors, and recover revenue. Red Points’ Intellectual Property Software accomplishes this through a simple, three-step process:
Our bots search the web 24/7 looking for intellectual property infringement. Through a combination of photo analysis and machine learning, we are able to refine and improve our search to identify trademark, patent, and copyright abuse.
Once we have detected instances of potential infringement we enable you to set up rules that make it easy for you to validate and act against these infringers. Our solution allows you to prioritize potential IP infringements that are high-risk and require your immediate attention. You can also use our validation cars to easily validate, pause or discard detected incidents.
Following validation, we move to enforce on your behalf. Our trusted legal partner will quickly begin the legal process of exposing the infringers, learning about their assets, stopping their actions and taking them down. Once the IP infringers are successfully removed and you have recovered any lost revenue you will then be able to learn from our insightful dashboards and reports.
Intellectual property rights play a key role every day for all kinds of businesses and individuals around the world. Whether you are dealing with copyrights, trademarks, patents, or design rights, it is important to be aware of the risks that infringers pose to your intellectual property.
To safeguard your intellectual property rights, it is important to have a clear understanding of what those rights are and how to enforce them. This can involve monitoring your intellectual property for any potential infringement and taking appropriate action when necessary. To learn more about how Red Points can help you protect your intellectual property, request a demo here.
