Starting up IP issues
20th Apr 2010
Starting a new enterprise can be a complicated and messy affair.
There are many demands on your time and many more on your wallet. There are numerous strands that need to be weaved into your new business.
And on top of all the high level strategy and low level practicalities, you’ll need eventually to start a revenue stream because your mortgage won’t pay itself.
It’s difficult, then, to prioritise the impact that intellectual property (that’s patents, trade marks, copyright etc) will have on your endeavours. But paying a little attention now can save much grief later.
Plus, if you think life’s busy now, do you think in five years’ time, when you have 40 employees and a £10 million turnover, that you will time to deal with it? And, in any case, by then it may be too late.
If you are doing something innovative, whether product or service, it is worth considering whether there is something protectable in there, whether registrable or not.
A strong IP portfolio raises barriers to market entry, and the lower the level of competition, the greater the profit potential, and profits make for happy investors. But you might also want to make sure that what you’re doing won’t tread on someone else’s toes, so checking out the lie of the land is just good sense.
And just because you’re doing something that might not be regarded generally as innovative, you might still want to have a think about the ways in which other people’s rights will have an impact on your business.
Do your contracts protect you against liability for infringements caused by your clients or suppliers, for example?
Large media businesses make a fortune out of penal licence fees foisted on ‘innocent’ infringers, as do the big city law firms that represent them. Don’t be one of their victims.
You won’t want to be thinking about what could go wrong, but just bear in mind that every day the unpredictable sinks perfectly good businesses.
Clever structuring of your business through the use of IP will make the difference between rescuing the key assets and seeing your investment go down with a perfectly sound business.
Author: Matthew Rippon (info@bhplaw.co.uk)
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