Every business, whether it be a start up with an innovative idea or an existing business, has intellectual property rights which are often seriously undervalued asset.
Indeed, banks are also starting to recognise intellectual property rights as assets and are becoming more willing to lend against them.
Businesses should maximise and exploit their brand and associated intellectual property rights. Virgin and Coca Cola are two of the best examples of corporations that have fully exploited and protected their intellectual property rights and brand image.
Companies should consider protecting their copyrights, registering their trade marks and patents as well as ensuring that no other companies set up in business or use domain names similar to their own.
Once rights have been properly protected then effective action must be taken to prevent infringement of those rights.
The danger in not protecting intellectual property rights is that a third party will reap the benefits rather than their rightful owner.
If you have an innovative new idea and invest time and money in creating, manufacturing and selling that product, once it is established and successful, if the rights have not been protected then anyone can copy the idea without any of the risk or start up costs and can trade on your idea.
Similarly if you have created an eye catching familiar brand, such as CocaCola, if others set up in business using your logo and image, then they are taking the benefit of your reputation and goodwill.
The value in CocaCola is in the brand and all that it stands for -the product itself is a soft drink like many others.
It is the branding and associated goodwill that sets it apart from other types of soft drink and CocaCola would be worth very little if there were competitors producing an identical product in an identical way.
Another issue relates to inferior products which is more important in relation to luxury brands.
If you purchase what you believe to be luxury item such as a Louis Vuitton handbag and the quality is inferior and not as expected, as you have in fact unknown to you bought a counterfeit copy, then the reputation of that Louis Vuitton brand is affected.
The difficulty facing small businesses has always been that the costs of protecting intellectual property rights, whether it be by trade mark or patent registration, have been prohibitively expensive.
The Government has taken steps to address the difficulty that small businesses face with the costs associated with registering trade marks.
A number of new proposals are being launched in October 2009, including enabling a trade mark to be registered more easily and cheaply under the ‘Right Start’ service.
Half of the usual £200 fee will be deferred until after the Intellectual Property Office has assessed whether or not the mark can be registered.
It represents a recognition of the importance of intellectual property rights that no one entering the Dragons Den should be without.
Press Releases
The importance of protecting your intellectual property
One of the first questions that is often asked by the Dragons is what steps an entrepreneur has taken to protect a new idea or brand.
In their wisdom, the Dragons recognise the importance of protecting intellectual property rights from the outset of any business venture.
