All businesses own intellectual assets, such as brands, knowhow, novel products or unique services. To what extent these are identified and protected as part of a business wide value creation strategy is a question all business leaders should be asking.
In its most basic form, an IP strategy is a plan to align the use of legal intellectual property rights to protect the needs of your business. It embraces the definition of your USP and how you protect that from copycat competitors. It also ensures that you can sell your products freely when you bring them to market. You can concede elements of control of your products and market if you do not adequately consider IP issues.
Tracking innovation is also an effective way of reading the pulse of the changing world in which all businesses are operating; it demands that you continually ask the questions which will protect your business from future obsolescence, such as what are existing competitors or disruptive new entrants doing differently? Where is customer demand migrating to and what is driving that? Where do we need to be, as a business, in the future?
Any successful product or service is going to attract the attention of competitors eager to try and claim some of your market share. Competitors can try to disrupt your business activities by launching similar products, while some may own intellectual property rights which they could enforce against your company. If you’ve not considered whether you have so-called freedom to operate in respect of your products and services, then the risks can be as severe as having to withdraw your product from the market, revise it in some way or pay your competitor a licence fee or financial damages. All of these outcomes can be costly for your business, particularly if you are not alert to the chance of them happening.
Being on the front foot, when it comes to intellectual property issues relevant to your business is important. Whilst putting effective legal protection around your products takes time and money, the return can be significant, with market exclusivity providing the opportunity to use more aggressive pricing with a higher underlying profit margin.
Understanding how the different types of intellectual property rights such as patents, trade marks and trade secrets can be utilised to underpin your business activity can result in you building a robust barrier to entry into your market, where the broader the scope of your IP rights, the bigger the design-around has to be should a competitor want to compete against you.
So, whether it is protecting your own intellectual assets or being aware of the Intellectual Property rights owned by others, taking the time to be clear on your approach to IP is crucial, and without it, you risk putting the future success of your business into the hands of your competitors.
Gordon Stark is Chief Operations Officer of Murgitroyd and a qualified UK and European Patent Attorney.
Speak to one of Murgitroyd’s expert attorneys and discover how protecting your IP can help your business by visiting the Murgitroyd website – www.murgitroyd.com
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