Intellectual property no business should overlook

Intellectual property is often seen as a concern only for large companies or technology businesses. In practice, almost every kind of business already owns assets of this type: a shop name, a logo, a formula or recipe, a work process or a customer database. The problem is that many business owners don't know what they have until a dispute arises.

What counts as intellectual property?

The types most relevant to everyday businesses fall into four groups:

• Trademarks protect names, logos or symbols that distinguish your goods and services from those of others
• Copyright protects creative works such as text, images, videos, designs and computer programs
• Patents and petty patents protect new inventions and product designs
• Trade secrets protect information that is valuable because it has not been disclosed, such as formulas, processes or customer lists

Trademarks: whoever registers first has the edge

Using a name or logo for a long time does not automatically give you rights to it. The trademark system puts the emphasis on registration, so whoever registers first is in the stronger position if a dispute arises.

Before settling on a brand name, check whether someone has already registered it and whether the name can be registered at all. Names that describe the product too directly are often hard to register. Investing in a brand before checking is a risk that is expensive to fix later.

Copyright: automatic, but you must be able to prove it

Copyright arises as soon as a work is created, with no need to register it. But when a dispute arises, the burden of proving who created the work first falls on the person claiming the right. That is why it is important to keep evidence of how the work was created, such as original files with dates and times, emails delivering the work, or commissioning contracts.

A mistake businesses often make is hiring outside people to do design work, programming or photography without stating in the contract who owns the copyright. Later they find they cannot reuse or adapt the work the way they thought they could.

Patents and petty patents

If your business develops a new product or process, think about patent protection before disclosing it to the public, because disclosing it before you file an application may mean it no longer meets the novelty requirement.

Common pitfalls include showing the product at a trade fair, posting details online, or offering it to customers without a confidentiality agreement, all before an application has been filed.

Trade secrets and contracts with staff

Some information is better kept secret than registered, because registration means disclosing the details. But secrecy is only protected if the organization actually has proper measures in place to safeguard it.

Basic measures include confidentiality agreements with employees and business partners, limiting access to those who need it, having a procedure for when employees leave, and making clear which information counts as the organization's confidential information.

A checklist for business owners

• Make an inventory of the intellectual property your business has and who owns it according to the paperwork
• Check the trademark status of the names and logos you currently use
• Check whether your contracts for commissioned creative work clearly state who holds the rights
• Decide which information is confidential and put measures in place to protect it
• Before making a new product public, check whether doing so would affect your right to apply for protection

Managing intellectual property systematically doesn't start with filing applications. It starts with knowing what your organization already has. Once you can see the whole picture clearly, you can decide what should be registered, what should be kept secret and which contracts need to be put in order first.