Need to register IP?

As a creative entrepreneur, protecting your creative Intellectual Property (IP) is the best thing you can do for your brand, especially with the increasing rate of exploitation and infringement in the industry. Intellectual property protects more than just an idea or a concept – it protects genuine business assets that may be integral to the core services of the business and overall long-term viability.

Intellectual property can consist of many different areas, from logos and corporate identity to products, services, and processes that differentiate your business offering. It’s when these ideas are used without permission that your business can suffer.

When you have a great idea for a product or service, there will always be people who will want to duplicate your success and sell your ideas as their own. Depending on individual circumstances, you can use patents, trademarks, or copyrights – all of which cover different areas of intellectual property. These can be used to prevent competitors or anyone else from using your ideas for their own profit without your consent.

Some of the main advantages to IP protection are set out below:

• Protecting your IP gives you an exclusive property right and can help your business to do better than it otherwise would, or it can kick-start a new business.
• Developing effective IP protection strategies will depend on your particular business.  An effective strategy may involve a range of IP protection options. As an example, you may seek patent protection for your product, register its design and develop a branding strategy based on a registered trademark.
• IP protection can allow you to turn your knowledge/idea into a tangible asset capable of assignment, transfer, and licensing.
• Your protected IP can be used as leverage for attracting investors, as collateral for obtaining finance.
• Protecting your IP can reduce the risks associated with commercialization by deterring competitors from using the protected IP.

It may seem initially daunting or time-consuming, but protecting your IP is well worth the time and effort and isn’t as difficult as you may think. Whilst you cannot protect an idea itself, you can protect the means by which you put the idea into operation, and this is what you would protect using IdeasMarketPlace.