Does your business have intellectual property? The answer is likely yes.
Whether it's a trade secret (say, a secret recipe for making a certain product), copyright (e.g., code lines of a computer program you developed), or even a commercial name/logo or a product design – it's also likely that it's an asset for which you've worked hard to obtain, and its development or acquisition cost you a lot of money.
Often, the same intellectual property is the most important and valuable asset a business has, and therefore losing control over it can lead to its ruin.
Loss of intellectual property, such as unprotected software that is stolen and distributed by a competitor, or a product you developed whose form is copied and sold by others, can, with near certainty, lead to customer churn, severe damage to reputation, and loss of profits.
And then, a late attempt to 'close the loophole' would require lengthy and expensive legal proceedings, the outcomes of which – after many exhausting years – can only be guessed at.
Is your intellectual property protected from 'hacks' or 'thefts'? Not at all certain.
As in many other cases, taking a number of simple and inexpensive steps in advance can protect your business and its intellectual property, and prevent much more costly and much less effective expenses when the damage has already been done.
In some cases, protecting intellectual property requires registration in a relevant government database.
For example, the registration of a 'trademark' (letters, numbers, words, figures, sounds, or combinations thereof, used to mark and identify goods or services), in order to prevent its copying by competitors, is done in Israel at the Trademarks Department of the Patents Authority. Similarly, patent protection also requires registration.
In other cases, intellectual property protection, such as copyright protection, cannot be achieved through registration but through other means, such as documenting ownership or attaching appropriate warnings or marks to its publication, in a way that prevents copying.
Only proactive and active protection of your intellectual property will allow you to minimize the chance of it being harmed, and alternatively, if necessary – will enable you to take effective legal steps for adequate compensation, in the event of harm should it occur.
Contact an experienced intellectual property attorney today, who will help you choose the right and effective means to protect your business's intellectual property.
We invite you to schedule a meeting with us to focus on your needs.
Adv. Dov Kerner 052-6371983