Whatever your business, the hard work, innovation and ideas behind it are worth protecting. In fact, intellectual property may be your business’ most valuable asset.

Intellectual property includes everything from your business name, website domain, branding and logo to designs, inventions and ideas. Getting to grips with the rights available to protect these assets will put you in a strong position to maximise your creative investment and prevent others from infringing those rights. Having protection for IP on which your business model relies may also increase investor interest in your business.

How to protect your IP

There are a range of IP rights to consider including trademarks, copyright, patents, design rights and confidentiality. Some of these rights arise automatically and others require registration to enhance your protection. 

Your IP will vary depending on what your business does. For example, if you are in retail, your primary IP will often be your brand. If you manufacture goods, you may have IP rights in the products you make. In the service sector, your IP may be embedded in the way you deliver your services and arise in the output of those services. For example, if you provide training, you will have copyright in your documented training materials. Software developers will have copyright in the software code they create. If you create products, you may have design rights in those products, and for inventions you may be able to apply for patent protection.

Ideally, the best time to think about IP you create and how you will protect is before you start trading, before it is disclosed to the wider market. Whatever stage your business is at, here are some things to think about.

IP issues when you’re starting up

Before you decide on your business name and brand, it is wise to ensure that you are not infringing someone else’s IP by checking that there is not the same, or similar, brand in the same market or sector. Commercially, this may also help you set your brand apart and build greater customer recognition.

Once you’ve decided on your brand you should think about trademarks. Unregistered trademark status arises automatically, but typically it is harder to defend if infringed by another party. By contrast, a registered trademark gives an absolute right to your trade mark in the categories of goods and services you register it, and to prevent others use the same or even a similar mark in those categories.

Other people may have been involved in the creation of your goods and services, for example designers, website developers, marketing consultants or even employees. In that case, you need to put suitable contracts to ensure that the IP rights in your goods and services belong to your business and not the person you appointed to created it for you. 

IP issues when you’ve started trading

If you have a particular way of doing your business or managing things, this is often referred to as ‘know-how’ and treated as a ‘soft’ IP right. Keeping records of your creations and know-how can be important for their future protection. By documenting them, you automatically benefit from copyright in those ideas, and having a record of when and how you created them may help should if your ownership is ever disputed or you wish to bring and infringement claim against someone else. 

Another form of protection to consider for your creations and ideas is confidentiality. This is useful where there is something you’d like to keep secret, but you need to disclose it to third parties for production or development for example. Famously Coca Cola have not registered the recipe for coke for formal protection. Instead, they protect it using confidentiality and non-disclosure agreements. Although registered status, such as for patents and designs, arguably confers higher rights, registered rights typically require disclosure of details of your creations on the public record. The advantage of confidentiality, by contrast, is that you avoid having to disclose details of whatever it is you want to protect. And, unlike with registered rights, there is no time limit on confidentiality, as long as your secrecy is maintained.

Where you are operating or trading will also impact the IP protection available to you. Many IP rights exist in similar ways across the world, but there may be instances where you may need to protect your IP in both the UK and other jurisdictions, particularly now the UK is no longer part of the EU. 

IP issues when you’re growing and attracting investment

Having certainty that your IP is protected will help when it comes to growing your business and raising funding for your business. Investors will want to know that robust processes are in place to ensure the value of their investment is not put at risk by claims undermining your IP.

As your business grows, it may also be possible to monetise your IP for example by licensing others to use it. You can maintain control by carefully defining the scope and terms of any licence, for example by limiting it in time, to a specific purpose or to a narrow category of users.

Where you choose to focus when it comes to IP will depend on factors including what type of business you are, the stage of your development and where you operate. However, one thing is certain, spending time thinking about your IP and how to safeguard and maximise it will be time well spent.