Why you need Intellectual Property (IP) protection

Every business at its launch, in the course of growth or at its peak has ever questioned itself as to whether and to what extent their company’s brands, designs and ideas are protected against vulnerability to intellectual property infringement.

The reasoning behind this is evident: the sooner and more thoroughly the company protects its intangible assets, the smaller the chances are of blocking the company from the use of their own intellectual property and suffering from the loss of expected profit at any point of operation. The same relates to individual authors of any type of creative works, especially when they consider commercializing their ideas.

IP protection options

Although IP legislations, terminology and terms around the globe vary considerably, thanks to international treaties and common practices, the procedures and approaches in protecting IP in most of the countries are largely similar. From a practical standpoint and in view of harmonizing IP protection rules of Europe and CIS for our clients, for sake of simplification we tend to classify the intellectual property to four most popular types:

  • trademarks (subtypes: word marks, figurative marks, combined marks, 3D marks)
  • designs (also known as: industrial designs or industrial models)
  • copyrights
  • trade secrets

Other IP types include patents (for inventions), utility models, geographical indications, semiconductor topography rights and plant variety rights.

While each of these main types has its own classification, duration, territorial coverage, clearly defined scope of rights, intended use, pros and cons and special features, in many instances they overlap each other when a variety of all available protection forms is concerned.

Therefore, it is no wonder why international IP experts are still debating on whether a 3D design of a product is best to be registered as a 3D trademark or an industrial design or as both. Another example: a brand name, domain name or slogan can only be protected as a word mark (trademark subtype); however, a brand logo may be protected both as a trademark and copyright and yet even as an industrial design and in each case the owner will have certain benefits and drawbacks.

This illustration demonstrates large variety of available IP protection options for a typical mobile phone seen as an industrial/consumer product.

So how can you effectively protect your IP?

Effective IP protection is about well-chosen strategy and understanding all the intricacies of the complex IP world. Having the prices and conditions for certain type of protection at hand not always works for the benefit of the client. This may be the case, for instance, when the client is confident that the best way to protect their firm’s logo is registering it as a trademark without being aware of all the benefits their logo may have with copyright protection as a much cheaper and quicker alternative with international power and yet having no less strength than the trademark in many instances.

We strongly believe that the best solution is always the one, which is finely balanced when all the available alternatives, conditions, recommendations (of the service providers), and costs of every step are taken into consideration on an individual basis. To let our clients take the best-suited decision, we have developed a special IP protection comparison tool and ready-made all-inclusive packaged solutions that cover, to the extent possible, all the above listed factors. These are:

  • IP Protection Packages – by types of protection (IP Protection Types Comparison)
  • IP Protection Packages – by IP objects:
    • Brand Protection Summary / All-in price and full description (Special Offer)
    • Product Protection Summary / All-in price and full description (Special Offer)
    • Website Protection Summary / All-in price and full description (Special Offer)

Our packaged solutions are specially designed for the needs of the majority of our customers that include multi-level protection strategies. Make sure you don’t miss our special offers with attractive discounted prices. We believe that you will find our IP comparison tool and the packaged solutions useful and applicable to your case. Should your case be different or you have a special inquiry please feel free to send us your request with relevant details. After careful study of your enquiry, we will offer you the optimal solution tailored to your specific needs.