Business now exists in an ideas or knowledge-based economy, where ownership of fixed assets is no longer important to business success.

This new economy has enabled banks, hotels, and taxi companies to take global leadership positions without owning any physical assets such as buildings, hotels, or vehicles.

The Standard and Poor 500 has switched over in the last 40 years from being 80% tangible to 80% intangible, and yet you would think the business world has not really noticed. This means business has changed from the value being predominantly tied up in machinery, buildings and materials and switched over to the value being in people, ideas, creativity, reputation, knowledge, process, platform, data and code, just look closely at all power brands of today. In these businesses the majority value is in assets you cannot touch or ‘bump into’.

We all understand, almost intrinsically, how we need to protect fixed assets such as buildings and cars; but most people struggle to understand how to protect business assets that they cannot touch.

This matters because your IP has value, especially when supporting your business to carve out its successful niche, and protecting your turf against intruders, but also possibly independently in its own right. For example, IP can be used for non-dilutive capital raises; it can be licensed, sold, included as negotiation chips in business development deals and even securitised.

IP enables the protection of these assets and importantly the sharing of such assets.

You may not have fully acknowledged yet, but it is very likely that a large part of your business valuation will be based on intangible assets such as ideas, inventions, know-how, relationships, and brands.

Definitions

• Government registered intellectual property includes patents, designs, trademarks, and some copyright (certain countries).
• Unregistered intellectual property includes trademarks, designs, copyright, trade secrets, know-how, data bases, data, relationships, licenses, customer lists, software, software licenses, reputation, domain names, websites plus social media presence and influence.
• Some of your intellectual property will be disclosed and hence made public and some will remain undisclosed, private and confidential to your business.

If you don't recognise and protect your intellectual property, then you are putting your business at risk that somebody else does and identifies the value before you do.

Whether you are hiring new employees, forming a partnership, doing M&A, launching a new product, realising innovation tax credits, complying with OECD BEPS and GDPR, investing in R&D, creating images, web designs or product packaging, writing copy, blogs, tweets or software code with and without the use of opensource; then you are using and creating intellectual property.

Intellectual property management is not a one-off exercise it's an evolving developing process that sits closely aligned to your business plan. It is more like a road map detailing the intellectual property steps alongside the developments of the business, the competitive landscape, the objectives and finally the budget.

Businesses achieving the highest rates of growth invest most in intangibles: A 2021 McKinsey report shows those companies experiencing faster growth invest 2.6 times more in intangibles than their slower-growing counterparts.

If you don't know what you've got and you're not managing it there is every chance that your IP is leaking or being misappropriated, either inadvertently or deliberately.

Senior management must know what intellectual property the business owns in order to drive maximum value from it. Most senior management will be able to list trademarks, patents, and some copyright, but how about all the other intangible things to give your company a competitive advantage?

I am talking about things such as trade secrets, customer lists, know how, proprietary data, supplier agreements, digital brand equity, software code, etc.

Think about what drives your competitive advantage and what your competitors would most like to steal from you.

If you don't know what you've got and you're not managing it there is every chance that your IP is leaking or being misappropriated, either inadvertently or deliberately.

You need an IP action plan and when those actions fall in the timeline should depend on your budget and business objectives.

We help businesses to compete and win with intellectual property, to protect their secret sauce and competitive advantage using IP in the most effective way for their goals and current situation. 

For over 21 years we have been helping founders, entrepreneurs and leaders turn intellectual property into valuable business assets. We develop IP strategies with both unregistered IP rights and registered IP rights, blended to build value and competitive sharpness for your business.  Our mission is to help businesses increase their value by using intellectual property to protect ideas, creativity, innovation, and competitive advantage. 

Your business will be playing the game of intellectual property at some stage. You would not enter a chess tournament without knowing the rules of chess, including the how each different piece can be engaged. The same is true of the intellectual property game.

Forewarned really is forearmed

Brand can be one of the most powerful and enduring of intellectual property rights.

A strong brand helps to shape how customers perceive and feel about a business, product or service. A brand is much more than the markers, logos and slogans used to identify it. Brands can be protected by a range of different methods including trademarks.

Creating a new brand, new product, service, or business name can be a very time consuming and potentially expensive process. Most IP experts will advise checking registered business names and trademark attorneys always undertake a thorough search of the national trademark registers to see if the name is already in use.

During the brand development stage, a thorough online search should also be undertaken.

..... on Google, of domain name registries and on social media platforms to see whether there is anything confusingly similar or even identical? A Google search shows if there is a website it does not show if there is a domain registered where the website has not yet been published.

Protecting the brand should involve a combination of thorough search, unregistered rights and registered trademark rights.

Online theft, counterfeiting, spoofing and fraud are all too prevalent and will no doubt impact your brand at some stage. Online brand protection measures are therefore highly advisable to maintain the integrity of the brand.

IP disputes will happen at some stage, and ideally you will have prepared for this eventuality through executing on an IP strategy which anticipated risks and value opportunities.

The key is to understand your position as completely as possible and to seek to avoid legal disputes for as long as possible.

Do not delay acting on these situations, since your delay could be costly and worse construed as ‘not caring’ and you do not want others to be able to infringe through such a judgement.

Developing a strategy and team, including external advisers and lawyers, is crucial to navigating safely through these choppy waters.