Intellectual property rights can offer a powerful way of controlling your designs within the marketplace and can add value to your product offering
Intellectual property right (IPR) is central to every sector. In fact, there is not a single business which would not be prejudiced by a competitor taking or imitating its name, ideas or products.
Intellectual property protects rights in 2- and 3-D designs, artwork, brands, mechanical inventions and buildings. Importantly, it protects any product or service which relies on the innovation, creativity or business goodwill generated or acquired by its supplier.
Intellectual property rights confer a legal monopoly in favour of the person owning them, which can be exercised to prevent imitation of designs and unauthorised use of business identities or inventive processes.
This monopoly gives significant control in the market place. Rights can (and should) be exercised to prevent competitors from taking unfair advantage of protected property.
With the benefit of intellectual property protection, designs can be published or commercially exploited without laying the owner open to free unauthorised copying by a third party. This enables the owner to be recompensed for their creativity - and so adds value to the relevant designs and, with that, the business of the rights holder. Intellectual property is an asset which can be bought, sold or licensed.
The effectiveness, enforceability and value of intellectual property protection will depend on the strategy adopted by the designer, or other proprietor of the rights. Decision-makers should ensure that their intellectual property strategy is in order. Failure to take the right steps at the right time can render property worthless.
'Brand' issues potentially affect all service providers as they take on increasingly commercialised strategies to create distinctive public perceptions of services they provide.
For public services, intellectual property has a different focus to that for business. While public services increasingly engage in commercial activities, they will perhaps more often be concerned with establishing and asserting intellectual property for defensive (rather than revenue-generating) reasons.
Public services should also have an eye to the consolidation of their intellectual property through policing of third-party infringements. For example, as public services adopt 'brand values' similar to the business sector, the importance of a trade mark strategy is increased. Initiatives should be adopted to prevent public confusion and brand dilution through trade mark registration and enforcement proceedings.
Public services should also be alert to the fact that third parties may exercise their intellectual property rights against them. Many services are digitising content, for example, for the purposes of open access web resources, without obtaining the appropriate clearances or licences. Wherever public services use or distribute material sourced from outside, intellectual property may well be an issue.