Sunday, November 29, 2009

Ways To Protect Your Intellectual Property

By Levy Hans

Even intangible property like ideas having commercial worth require safeguarding from people who could misuse them for their benefit without the consent of the creator or owner. Intellectual property or IP rights enable you to protect your idea legally as well as to take action against violators. Some of the options for safeguarding your interest in your intellectual property are mentioned below.

First and foremost, you should ensure that no person other than you has a comprehensive knowledge of the idea that needs to be protected. You need to be very careful about the details of your idea, while sharing it with others, especially on unsecured mediums such as internet. If you want to share your idea with your colleagues through email, you must ensure that your account is secured with a strong password.

It is good to be personally conscious of some of the fundamental intellectual property laws. This legal understanding will aid you in shaping your company's policies to guard your intellectual property and prosecute those who try to take undue advantage of it. For example, if you engage a team to further improve upon your idea, you can make the members of the team know that what you are providing them is classified information. One way of ensuring confidentiality is by asking all the associates to sign non-disclosure agreement, so that you can turn to legal action if required.

It is always recommended to take suggestion from a lawyer, who can figure out specific provisions of law for protecting your rights. The related laws can many times be quite complicated and it is always better to rely on an intellectual property lawyer for these issues. The law expert will be able to instruct you on how to patent or copyright your work so that no infringement takes place.

It is important to remember that the nascent stages of the idea development are the most appropriate time for hiring an IP lawyer. An early application for patent or copyright can save you a lot of time and effort later.

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