Intellectual Property in a Company – How to Protect It?

It turns out that even a small company can possess intellectual property that is worth protecting. An innovative production method, an innovative use of a procedure or machine can become the starting point for the development of a truly large enterprise – therefore, it is worth securing your own ideas appropriately in advance.

Intellectual property protection can be carried out in two ways. The first option involves obtaining exclusive rights, the second (non-regulatory approach) allows protection in the form of so-called “tacit knowledge.”

Intellectual Property Protection – Exclusive Right

The first way to protect yourself from the use of the company’s property is exclusive copyright. The good news is that in this case, there is no need to fulfill any formalities – the work is automatically protected from the moment of its creation.

Thus, if an unauthorized person begins to use your intellectual property, you will have the full right to go to court. At this stage, it is worth remembering that you will need to prove your authorship and the date of creation. If you are creating something truly valuable, it is worth taking care of such evidence in advance so that you are protected in the event of litigation.

In the case of an invention, legal protection is provided through a patent. To obtain it, you will have to go through a rather complex legal procedure. The invention should be reported to the relevant authority. You will be required to provide:

• a patent application;
• a description of the invention and its abstract;
• patent claims or claims of the invention.

After reviewing the application, the inventor is granted a patent – the exclusive right to use the invention for commercial or professional purposes.

Intellectual Property Protection – Tacit Knowledge

Legal methods of intellectual property protection provide complete security to its owner, but they have one drawback. Often, they are not permanent, as they lose their validity over time or due to the place where they are valid. Therefore, it is worth considering an alternative solution – tacit knowledge.

In this case, the entrepreneur does not need to fulfill formal requirements to obtain protection, and they do not need to worry about the passage of time. On the other hand, their responsibility will include taking all measures to ensure that procedures or innovations that are valuable to the company do not become public knowledge.