Best way to protect intellectual property [FAQs]

Last updated : Aug 27, 2022

What are four ways to protect intellectual property?

What Are the 4 Types of Intellectual Property Protections? Copyrights, trademarks, patents, and trade secrets are the four primary types of intellectual property protection.

What is intellectual property and how is it protected?

Inventors, designers, developers and authors can protect the ideas they have developed, for instance by means of copyright or patents. The aim is to prevent others from wrongly profiting from their creations or inventions.

How can you protect your intellectual property without a patent?

If you determine that the invention is probably not patentable, the most effective way to protect yourself is to have prospective licensees sign a nondisclosure agreement before you reveal your invention. This document is sometimes called an "NDA" or a "confidentiality agreement," but the terms are similar.

Why should we protect intellectual property?

Intellectual property protection is critical to fostering innovation. Without protection of ideas, businesses and individuals would not reap the full benefits of their inventions and would focus less on research and development.

How can I protect my product?

The best and most well-known way of protecting a new product is to gain a utility patent. The patent covers the creation of any new or improved product that is useful.

How can you protect intellectual property rights in the innovation process?

Patents. A patent is an exclusive right given for an invention, which is a product or a method that gives a new technological solution to a problem or a new way of doing something. It gives the patent holder protection for his or her idea. The protection is only provided for a set amount of time, namely 20 years.

What are the 4 types of intellectual property rights?

Patents, trademarks, copyrights, and trade secrets are valuable assets of the company and understanding how they work and how they are created is critical to knowing how to protect them.

What are the 3 ways of protecting intellectual property?

There are only three ways to protect intellectual property in the United States: through the use patents, trademarks or copyrights. A patent applies to a specific product design; a trademark to a name, phrase or symbol; and a copyright to a written document.

How can I legally protect my business idea?

1. Register your intellectual property (IP) portfolio.
2. Monitor for infringements of your protected business ideas.
3. Enforce IP ownership and take down infringements.
4. Employ a brand protection software.

Can someone steal my idea if I have a patent pending?

What Is Patent Pending Infringement? As soon as you file a patent application with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), your invention is "Patent Pending." Once your application is submitted, nobody can steal, sell, or use your invention without your permission.

How do governments protect intellectual property?

The three main areas of intellectual property law that innovators use to protect their ideas are Trademarks, Patents, and Copyrights.

What are the 5 most common intellectual property?

• Copyrights.
• Trademarks.
• Patents.
• Trade Dress.
• Trade Secrets.

What are examples of intellectual property?

• Patents.
• Domain names.
• Industrial design.
• Confidential information.
• Inventions.
• Moral rights.
• Database rights.
• Works of authorship.

Do you trademark or copyright a product?

Copyright protects original work, whereas a trademark protects items that distinguish or identify a particular business from another. Copyright is generated automatically upon the creation of original work, whereas a trademark is established through common use of a mark in the course of business.

How can you protect your intellectual property in the international environment?

You must protect your IP by filing for a patent in a specific country. In order to file for a patent overseas, you must already have a U.S. Patent and Trademark Office license.

What protects intellectual property created by inventors?

Patents protect the intellectual property created by inventors.

What is the most important type of intellectual property?

Patent. A patent is used to prevent an invention from being created, sold, or used by another party without permission. Patents are the most common type of intellectual property rights that come to people's minds when they think of intellectual property rights protection.

How do you avoid copyright?

1. Do not copy anything.
2. Avoid non-virgin development.
3. Avoid access to prior design work.
4. Document right to use.
5. Negotiate for enhanced warranty and indemnity clauses.
6. Document your own work.

What is the most famous trademark?

• Amazon – 416 Billion Dollars.
• Apple – 352 Billion Dollars.
• Microsoft – 327 Billion Dollars.
• Google – 324 Billion Dollars.
• Visa – 187 Billion Dollars.
• Alibaba – 153 Billion Dollars.
• Tencent – 151 Billion Dollars.
• Facebook – 147 Billion Dollars.

What is a poor man's patent?

A poor man's patent is essentially writing out a description of your invention and then mailing that written description to yourself. This postmarked envelope supposedly acts to create the date of your invention as the date this written description was postmarked.

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did you drive to work today you're not using a key looks like this or even probably using something that looks like this weird blocky thing right okay yeah it's a key fob this is something that people use all the time in proximity without a mechanical key knows that you're the owner this is yours and allow you to open the car door I bet you've got an idea that could be just as revolutionary right that could change the lives of millions of people I want to help you think about all different ways to protect your idea I'm JD Hoover managing partner USPTO registered patent attorney at bold patents law firm I've dedicated my career to helping inventors like you bring your visionary idea to market it's my job here today to talk to you about what it what ways you can think about identifying what ways you can protect your idea to make sure that you're the only planner the only the most competitive advantage is awarded to you and you make your way toward protecting that visionary idea the next thing I want to mention real quickly is that there's a table of contents if you can't make the whole video today I want you to go to know that you can fast forward to go to different sections and before you do that if you're enjoying this whole idea it would be like the way I'm presenting and the content please give us a like you can of course share this with anybody share the link or give us a comment below if you've got a question a concern or you know you got your feedback on based on what sort of content we have here for you it's essential a final note is that on our website a bold IP comm /blog I did write a full link article about how to bring your idea to market how to protect your idea so go visit that blog article it's constantly being updated I want to make sure it's the best written article on the subject out there on the World Wide Web there's five main areas okay you've got design patents utility patents trademarks copyrights and trade secrets right there's a lot of coverage here I'm going to blast through these for you so with your idea you can protect it with design patents it's awesome right design patents is how you protect the look and feel if you've got something you've created that's what's called an article of manufacture meaning you can make it if you can make it then you can protect it with design patents all right let's take a look and what you've done if what it is is it's novel and has non-obvious characteristics to it right in the shape or the format or the feel of it you can protect the ornamentation it's a fancy word for the aesthetic appeal next utility patents you can protect your idea covering the functionality utility patents protect you for 20 years let's enormous on a time right 20 years protection federally-backed so you can take any infringer to federal court with a patent trial appeal board or even the international trade commission to stop things at the border utility patents are so strong and they cover lots of different things in terms of what they do so if your invention does something cool I'm not just cool but it's the first time anyone's ever done that let's look into protecting your idea with utility patent no trademarks if what you've developed is a brand right you've got a company and people recognize your products your goods your service and they know that if they see that mark or that logo that you and your services your goods that's where they came from you need trademark protection federal trademark protection governs those goods and services that are sold outside of one state they call interstate commerce so if you're on the internet selling if you have customers out of state you must see trademark protection to protect your idea trade secrets this is when you start bringing on employees and trusted other humans with data and information on how you keep that leg up on the competition how in the world do you have margin how are you profitable all that information customer lists processes technology manufacturing methods that's all trade secret let's get into the details to help you figure out how you can keep it in now last but certainly not least his copyrights copyrights is how artists are able to control the photographs the songs the visual works the sculptures right all different things they do to put together the written works that govern what's published in with sole registrations should be soft for any artistic work that is written form or an artistic form that's on a website in a book in a manual instructions you name it any type of artistic creation that's from the mind fixed in a tangible means should be protected under copyright so these five big tips are ways that you can help protect your big visionary idea if you've captured these big five give us a big thumbs up if you've enjoyed this content you want to learn more please visit us on our website at bull dyke e-comm /blog we're gonna hook you up with a full-length blog article and if you want we're giving away this book for free available on Amazon for 31 bucks and print copy we're giving you a digital searchable PDF for free Boldin vidcom ford slash free get your copy today plus my pleasure talking with you here today I'm JD Hooven our managing partner here both paths have a great day everybody go big go bull you

Thanks for your comment Agnus Callow, have a nice day.
- Milton Ezechu, Staff Member

welcome to the journey today we'll be talking about tips for protecting your business's intellectual property all businesses have intellectual property or ip whether they know it or not exactly you could have created something you have your brand or a website but whatever you do have you want to make sure that you protect it because it's yours so definitely make sure you take the necessary steps all right so let's start talking about those intangible assets now these are your ideas know-how your processes they're the foundation of your business and what sets you apart from your competitors so here are some examples of different types of ips that every business has but rarely considers starting with trademarks so if you have a specific business name special name for your products or logo those are all intangible assets that can be trademarked and these trademarks are things that are specific to your business special words or images that you want to make sure that you protect and that are different from everyone else and what i like about trademarks is they represent your brand they represent your reputation you know what it is what it's going to be just make sure that it's unique to you and your customers your target audience kind of like the coffee and kit flips exactly like the coffee and kick flips and that's why it's important that you're not infringing on anyone else's ip so you want to make sure that this is unique to you again with coffee and kickflips when we were thinking of the name it was difficult at first because just the shared amount of names that are out there there's a lot of coffee out there a lot of coffee a lot of skate brands so to come up with something unique yeah it took some time took some research but we're saying that's critical for you to do make sure that you aren't doing something too similar to another business or logo or brand that's already out there and that's why it's so important to really protect your intellectual property because it's not always intentional but sometimes some other people could actually do what you've already done and you don't want that to happen because that's your baby so protect your intellectual property all right so for our next one copyright any original piece of work that has been produced in a tangible medium is considered a copyright think of music movies and it doesn't stop there you could have original website copy marketing materials and other creative works the big point here is it has to be an original work that either you've done or you've paid someone else to do you can't take someone else's work and present it as your own now this might seem oh pretty straightforward right no it's a large world on the internet it's easy to get mixed up on where was this original photo from we see it all the time on social media and businesses ask me all the time oh emma so a customer was in my restaurant they took a picture while they were there can i use that for a restaurant's instagram i always say ask always ask the original photographer of that photo before then sharing it over to your instagram for your restaurant all right so next on our list are patents now patents have been a little hard to understand because most times patents have been synonymous with an idea and i remember when i had a former job in research there was a gentleman who worked for a company and he came up with an awesome idea however the patent on that idea belonged to the company and not him so it's very important to know all the limitations of patents so in reality a patent allows you to exclude anyone else from creating or selling your invention all right so just because you've gotten your patent doesn't mean that you just kick your feet up and begin to just have money rolling in you actually have to do the work to get your product created so if you think i have this great idea then go ahead get a patent attorney so that way you do it right work with an expert and it's better than trying to just do it on your own i'll go to wikipedia and figure it out that may not work so next up i want to talk about trade secrets one of my favorite things to talk about and it's because this is when you have something about your business or your company that is only known to you the business and it reminds me of it reminds me of when i worked at dagwood's deli in bloomington indiana don't worry john i'm not going to give away your secret but when after we were hired we actually had to sign a statement that said we would not tell the secret sauce recipe there was just yeah i can't tell you but there was this great sauce that we put on all of our sandwiches that everyone was just jonesing for and i can't even remember the recipe but at the time it was a big deal i had to keep it a secret for the owner all right so trade secrets are processes formulas or methods that you use to create your product so like in emma's case you want to make sure that you have these agreements in place with those who know your information to keep it confidential under threat of legal action all right let's jump into some tips i recommend plan ahead because you might not be able to do everything at once or protect everything at once and things pop up maybe you need more money than you thought so get a calendar out plan ahead get time on your side and next you want to have an employee agreement it's an important piece to the ip puzzle now this is different than a non-disclosure and that's right nondisclosure is going to protect your ip from any public disclosure so for example let's say some people were coming through dagwood's deli while we're making the secret sauce they can't then leave the business that day and go replicate it or share that recipe so the employee agreement keeps your employees from leaking your ip and then non-disclosure protects you from having people outside your business leaking your ip also want to talk about agreements with consultants or vendors keep in mind you're paying them for a service but you still have an ip this is your property it's your idea they can't go and take it all right so next you want to make sure that you file the patent application because no one wants to disclose that they have this great idea that intellectual property before you know it's yours and you own it so if your product or service has a specific name make sure you protect that so for example remember snuggies the snuggie it's so long yeah you have one of course you're like i have two so that if you have something unique like that the snuggie you can protect it you'll notice as seen on or tm afterwards all right so now let's talk about the internet if you find something online it doesn't necessarily mean that it's okay to use if you're gonna use some kind of creative piece of work and commercial purposes make sure that you reach out to the one that owns the copyright and make sure you have their express consent to use it for instance at my job at godaddy most times content creators if they're using some kind of stock photo they want to make sure that it's either not copyright protected so they're going to use it with no problem or if it

Thanks Ada your participation is very much appreciated
- Milton Ezechu

About the author

Milton Ezechu

I've studied modern history at Centenary College of Louisiana in Shreveport and I am an expert in urban anthropology. I usually feel devious. My previous job was hosts and hostesses I held this position for 17 years, I love talking about photography and laser tag. Huge fan of Paul Walker I practice horse riding and collect automobilia.