Intellectual Property- Don’t Give Away Your Advantage
February, 2017
Intellectual property (IP) is the intangible property that you as an individual or a business owns. Intellectual property can often be what sets you apart from your competition. Without it you can almost blend into the background of the market without excelling and propelling the business forward. IP can be any little idea to a massive change that you wish to implement to your business to do numerous things. you could be changing the way you manufacture to reduce costs or increase output, it may even be an entirely new product . The implementation of these ideas can often become a business unique selling point. The unique selling point to a business can be one of its biggest attractions to customers. Especially relevant in markets where competition is dominated by major businesses.
IP can be protected in a variety of ways, you can have a patent if the idea relates to a tangible good. You can use copyright and trademarks to stop people from using your branding or colour. For example, Cadbury’s have a trademark on their shade of purple and copyright protection on their logo.
You may be asking why would we tell you this if were looking to provide insurance? Well, intellectual property insurance is the method in which you can defend yourself or chase somebody that is either using your intellectual property or considers you to be using theirs. Intellectual property insurance is the money that you can use to defend against a claim. So you may well have a patent in place or copy right or even a trademark. But if you want to chase somebody that’s infringing on your IP then the costs will come out your own pocket and sometimes businesses just can’t afford to pay to stop this, insurance can cover these costs for you.
IP is a way of ensuring that you stand out in a market that is often worldwide. The use of technology has made the world a smaller place and competition is more dense than ever, this means that being unique is the best way of surviving of the dog eat dog world which is business.
Do you value your intellectual property?
I believe that one of the best things you can do for your business as an innovator, is implement your idea’s because it may just be one of those idea’s that can take the business to the next level. IP has a value as it maybe the difference between profit and loss. This value is difficult to calculate but that is down to us to help you determine. Never the less IP is is valuable to your business and can be considered a business asset. You should protect your assets, so protect your IP as it adds value to the business.
