Kickstart your IPR process
Are you just starting your journey in the field of intellectual property rights (IPR)? It’s likely that you have already heard about the importance of IPR. Perhaps you have been asked about your patent portfolio, or you may have received questions regarding the patents or trademarks which protect your products. In other words, you would like to kickstart the IPR process within your business. Great! Now is a perfect time to take action.
Let’s find out where you are now – just contact our experts
The first consultation with our experts is free of charge. The purpose of this discussion is to review your IPR situation from a business perspective and to evaluate your needs at this time. The meeting requires no advance preparation on your part. Don’t hesitate to be in touch – our attorneys know which questions to ask. If investing in IPR would support your business goals, our experts will provide a suggestion on the next steps to take, along with a proposed time frame.
We help build success stories – the goal of IPR is to support your business growth
An IPR action plan is always created on a case-by-case basis for each individual company. If you have an invention and are planning to unveil a product based on this invention soon, obviously the most pressing concern is to draft and file a patent application before the invention becomes public. Trademark and design protection possibilities are also worth considering at this stage.
If your situation does not call for protecting an invention in the near future, the best way to begin IPR activities is creating an IPR strategy which supports your business goals. Such a strategy typically includes specifying how IPR generated by employees is handled at your company and organizing training in intellectual property rights for key staff members.
Know where you are headed with IPR – avoid collisions with competitors
The more you know about the IPR landscape in your business or technology area, the better equipped you are to make the right decisions for your business. A patent landscape evaluation is a visual tool which clearly communicates where your competitors currently stand and where they are headed to. That is to say: which solutions your competitors have patented, and what are their product development focus areas. A prior art analysis provides the same information in a document-oriented format.
A trademark or design is what distinguishes a company or product from others of its kind. They can include names of companies or products as well as logos or product designs. In order to focus your attention and resources on the right actions, it is crucial to recognize and identify the trademark and design rights of both your company and other players. The experts on our trademark team can help you identify your rights and assist you in any preliminary analyses you might require.
To protect or to keep secret?
A patent is inherently a tradeoff: you disclose your idea to the public in exchange for a time-limited right to prohibit others from using your invention. The patent application must explain your invention in sufficient detail that a professional in your field can make or use the invention. For this reason, treating the invention as a trade secret may sometimes be the best way to protect it; however, this involves the risk of someone else using or patenting your innovation. Therefore, the decision between patenting an invention and keeping it confidential should be considered carefully together with experts.
Our invention harvesting service is a flexible way to evaluate the product or process innovations resulting from an ongoing project. The service helps pinpoint R&D ideas which are essential for your business and may be worth protecting with IPR measures.
