Taking steps to protect intellectual property

In today’s fast-moving, technology-driven world, ideas or ‘intellectual property’ are king. No longer is progress solely dependent on man-power and muscle, it is innovation which makes the world go round.

By James Hardy, Head of Europe, Alibaba.com

That’s good news for small to medium enterprises (SMEs), many of which trade on invention rather than a huge staff base. But those ideas are wide open to theft. Unless you take steps to protect the ground-breaking new piece of technology your company has come up with, anyone can copy it and try to produce it for a lower price, leaving you high and dry.

Many SMEs know they ought to get more Intellectual Property (IP) literate, but they may have limited time and resources for finding out how to go about it, what exact documents they need, how long it will take, and, most importantly, the likely cost.

That’s where this guide comes in. It provides a useful overview of what types of IP there are and how SMEs can go about securing that all-important protection on their most valuable assets: their ideas.

Patents

Applying for a patent is a costly and lengthy process, but securing one means you can stop other people copying your idea. Patents also increase value; goods described as “patented” will enjoy increased status and diminished competition.

Patents are only granted to ideas which are genuinely new. This means research is needed into the rest of the marketplace to establish the genuine innovation of a product. This research is known as a “prior art” search and it involves looking at the Intellectual Property Office database, which give details of previous patents awarded in particular fields.

You can hire a patent attorney to do this work for you. When you file a patent application, the patent office of whichever country you are applying in will generally conduct extensive research as well, and they may well come back at you with questions about your idea while considering your invention.

If you decide to go ahead with an application, you will need to fill in the correct form, and send in detailed specifications to the country’s official patent office. In the UK, for example, the patent office is the Intellectual Property Office and you should find details of which forms you need to fill in on their website.

Trademarks

Your company’s IP isn’t just about the ideas you come up with. The way you brand yourself is also very important in building your image within the marketplace and distinguishing your business from your competition. A trademark can be an important part of your IP arsenal.

Consider the case of Guccio Gucci who was refused permission to use the family name for his handbag company, ToBeG, when a judge ruled it created an unfair association with the famous fashion house.

As with patents, trademark rules vary from country to country. Some countries – the US for instance – give some common law protection which mean you can put “™” on your goods without registering.

Even where this is the case, registration is advisable as without doing so it will be very difficult to stop other people from using your trademark. Plus, you can only use the “®” symbol for “registered trademark” if you have registered it.

In Britain, the only organisations which provide legal trademark protection are the Intellectual Property Office, the European Patent Office and the Community Trademark Office. As with patents, a trademark only covers the country in which it is applied for. You can apply to register internationally in countries which have signed up to the Madrid Protocol through the World Intellectual Property Organisation.

For your trademark to be accepted, it must be distinctive, and not describe the goods or services offered by your company. Trademarks can and have been refused if they fail to meet these criteria. Again, as with patents, a database search is advisable prior to registration to establish whether anyone else has a similar mark that could conflict with yours.

Cost-wise, as a guide, in Britain registering a trademark will set you back £200 and normally takes around six months. Once you have a registered trademark, you can license other people to use it too. You will also need to renew the trademark to keep it in force.

For more, The World Intellectual Property Organization has useful information on its website, as does the Alibaba guide: education.ipstreet.com.