Intellectual property is a term, generally used to describe intangible property rights—those you usually cannot see or touch viz. various types of innovation, mental activity, and creative or artistic effort; and if not protected on time IP loses its significance.  

Winning or losing out in business and financial opportunities sometimes heavily depends upon whether your creative output, inventions, products and business ideas and services are protected by patents, trademarks, copyrights, trade secret rights, industrial design, and others.

Organizations have failed or succeeded because of their owner’s effort to protect their intellectual property, or their failure to do so.

At Resolute4IP, we understand and appreciate the tireless effort made by individual and or organization to come up with intellectual property and therefore our first is to make them understand what shall be the best way; to protect his or her Intellectual Property and guide them on the protection process.

The key steps in this journey are:

1. Know your Intellectual Property (KYIP): This is the first and most important task towards protecting an IP, as some forms of intellectual property viz. Patent, Industrial Design should not be disclosed before filing. So, identify the IP that you own. With clear understanding of your IP, you will be able to leverage maximum value from your IP.

2. Record it as they are created: Once you identify the type of IP created, it will be easy for you to document it in appropriate disclosure forms. It is important to create or get Standard Disclosure Forms for various IP types. This again help you in known what kind of information you need to record for respective IPs.

3. Educate your Team: To limit the accidental sharing of your IPs before filing or prior to taking appropriate checks in case of confidential information; educate your team about the importance of keeping the details confidential prior to filing. Keep them awake on such critical issues by sensitizing them through interaction with IP expert or recognition.

4. Do not publicly disclose your IP prior to filing: Only trademark is a form of IP in which ownership is decided by who uses the trademark first in a commercial setup. Alternatively, all other forms of IP have strict requirement of something called as ‘novelty’ prior to the date of filing.    

5. A final thought: The world of IP is constantly evolving. In recent past, there have been various amended in Statutes which govern the Intellectual Property laws in country. The only way to navigate through these changes will be through intellectual property advisors, who can interpret these amendments and translate them into useful strategies for a business.  The organizations offering adequate resources to take proactive action will be better able to capitalize on the opportunities this new world of IP provides.