Developed an idea for your business and worried about violation of your intellectual property? If you own a business it is very important to protect your assets. Here are a few ways by which you can protect your business from IP violations.
5 Ways To Protect Your Business From IP Violations
1. Register your business under the appropriate IP protection
Generally, these are the four major ways through which you can legally protect your business from IP violations:
- Copyrights: Copyrights protect your original work ranging from music, art to computer software and so on.
- Trademarks: Your branding elements like words, phrases, jingles are protected by trademarking your business.
- Patents: A patent allows the holder to exclude others from copying, making and selling their innovation for a predetermined period of time. In short, it safeguards your innovation. There are three types of patents under which you can safeguard your invention in general: utility patents, design patents and plant patents
- Trade secrets: A trade secret is a formula, process, device, or other business information that companies keep private to give them a business advantage over their competitors. This gives the company an economic advantage over its competition.
2. Ensure that your clients know you own the IP
Before presenting the project/idea to your client, potential investors or partners with the business idea, ensure that they sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement to ensure that they know you own the IP.
Trademark your branding to protect your business from IP violation. Patent your idea to make sure they won’t replicate it.
3. Plan and prepare
Do your research and make sure that you aren’t violating anybody’s IP copyrights. Do your homework on the market you are leaping and do not infringe some else’s IP.
Before promoting a product or service lookout for related patents, copyrights and trademarks.
4. Monitor your marketplace
Keep an eye on your industry to look out for any infringement of your IP. Laws and registrations offer you legal ways to protect your business from IP violations but they don’t ensure that your idea won’t be stolen.
It’s your job to monitor any violation of your IP and take the action accordingly.
5. Defend your rights if there is an IP violation
If there is a violation of your protected IP, take action accordingly.
There are various options to take legal action against violation of your IP. this includes sending a cease and desist letter, filing a lawsuit and requesting a court session. All of this depends upon your situation and the type of IP violation.
An experienced IP lawyer will help you defend your rights.
Recently, the Reserve bank of India issued a mandate that requires all payment companies to store payments data within the country. The move comes as a push to protect people’s financial privacy and data.
At Instamojo, your protection is our priority. We don’t just safeguard your account information but also are PCI-DSS compliant which means all your transactions are encrypted to a standard.
Don’t let IP issues stop you from becoming an entrepreneur. Sell your idea on Instamojo today!
