When running your business, the cost of doing business is a big factor. Protection of IP often slips off the radar as a “nice to have” rather than critical to pay salaries cost decision. Fair enough. But when should you start paying attention to your IP and spending money on protecting it? And is there any benefit other than being able to defend your IP in the event of an infringement claim?
The answer is most certainly yes. If you are looking at some point to either growing your business through investment, or selling your business, you need to make sure your IP is protected and defensible as this is often looked at as the most valuable asset in your business. And if it isn’t protected, the value in the asset is reduced greatly.
The World Intellectual Property Organisation (“WIPO”) published this paper on IP and your SME.
Investing in protecting your IP, be it through patents, trademarks or other means, can enhance the value of your business and make it far more attractive in the eyes of any potential investors. Not only could have the correct IP protection in place secure certain protected areas of business for your company, it could also create a new revenue stream through licensing of key IP to third parties.
Most of us have heard of Beats headphones by Dr Dre…few of us have heard of the company Monster that actually made the headphones. See this article which sets out the costs of not properly protecting your IP.
At any rate, whether you are ready to start investing in the protection of IP yet or not, a good exercise for any business is to have an IP audit so that they can plot where they are today and determine a value-adding growth plan for the business in the future.