Why does Intellectual Property relate to small and medium enterprises??
Intellectual Property is everywhere around us. All products and services used in our daily life are resulted from creativity, such as changing designs or improving technique to create the recent
functions or shape of products.
Let’s take an example about ballpoint pen as an example. This well-known innovation of Ladislao Biro was a breakthrough. However, like Ladislao Biro, many people have improved the ballpoint pen and its design and legally protected such improvement via obtaining intellectual property rights. The trademarks on the ballpoint pen are also intellectual property, which help the manufacturers promote their products and target the loyal customers thereof.
The similarity happened to almost all products and services on the market. The CD player is an example. The patent has been granted for many technical parts of the CD player. The names of CD player have been protected as trademarks and the copyrights of rhythms played by the CD players has been protected.
How does Intellectual Property affect your enterprise?
No matter what products or serviced provided by your enterprise, your enterprise is creating and using many intellectual property rights. Therefore, you should systematically consider necessary measures to protect, manage and enforce the intellectual property rights in order to exploit the best efficiency from such rights. If you are using the intellectual property rights of other holders, you have to consider receiving them via transfer or license to prevent future disputes.
Almost all small and medium enterprises have trade name or own at least one trademark and should consider protecting these subjects. Almost all small and medium enterprises have their valuable secret information, for example, customer lists and strategies that the enterprises wants to keep confidentiality. Many enterprises created designs with creativity. Many enterprises prepared and published publications and advertising documents or selling works with copyright protection. Others innovated or technically improved their products or services. In such circumstances, the enterprises should consider the best measures to use intellectual property for their benefits. It should be noted that the intellectual property rights may assist your enterprise on many aspects of business and building up competition strategies: developing and designing products, providing services and promoting, attracting finance capital and exporting or broadening your business to foreign countries via license agreement or franchise agreement.
For further information, please follow the next contents, explore the world of intellectual property and chances that intellectual property may bring to your enterprise.
