IP Prototect
Understanding, managing and protecting your Intellectual Property is the best way to build shareholder value. Inactivity or the wrong decisions could cost your business in lost opportunities and reduce shareholder value.
If you are planning a liquidity event in the next few years, IP Prototect enables you to assess your IP well in advance. You can then take steps to protect it and capitalise on opportunities. Shareholder value is protected and enhanced. This means you fly through due diligence process and get the value you want!
Try Our IP Prototect now to add value to your business!
What we do:
IP Prototect looks at your registered and unregistered IP in its many forms and focuses on:
- Identification of your current IP
- Assessment of potential for its protection, (like registration)
- Assessment for its exploitation (like licensing)
- Initial assistance with IP strategy
- Highlighting potential risks, pitfalls and costs
Why use Haddletons:
Having worked inside (and with) IP-rich businesses our experienced team has seen how mistakes cost the business money and reduce shareholder value. This includes maintaining the wrong/too many registrations at great cost; not enforcing IP so it is lost; not dealing properly with joint ownership of IP so that it is valueless: Our IP Prototect allows you to assess and manage your IP years before a liquidity event. In turn this means that shareholder value is enhanced and costs reduced, so you fly through any due diligence process!
Why not let us assess you IP assets and identify a strategy for your full IP lifecycle to protect and enhance your investment?
The Haddletons Way
Trust
We earn your trust through our authenticity. We listen, we communicate honestly, we genuinely care.
Warmth
We are people just like you. Get to know us and you will find that we can do more than just resolve your problems and lighten your load.
Personal Service
We look at the world through your eyes to offer a truly bespoke service. The more we understand you and your world, the more we can do for you.
Premium Quality
We offer a premium service with price certainty. Our insight and expertise applied to your needs.
Mark Thomsit
Technical Director & Co-Founder, Make & Ship Ltd
Frequently Asked Questions
Can data be classed as intellectual property?
Intellectual property is defined by the English Oxford Dictionary as “intangible property that is the result of creativity”. Data would seem to be more tangible than not – however many kinds of data are subject to the same rights as a literary or artistic work and require IP or copyright rights when created.
Is there a restriction on what I can register as a trade mark?
A trademark must be a unique symbol/representation for your business and will usually include words, colours and logos. It cannot however:
- be too non-distinctive
- be misleading
- use words that describe the goods/services of the company
- be offensive in any way
- be a 3-dimensional shape associated with your trade mark
What are design rights?
Design rights are an alternative method to a patent of protecting your intellectual property. Design rights protect the ‘design’ of an important and innovative new product. The design is just the shape and configuration of objects. For even better protection you can register your design. This will prevent anyone else using the appearance, shape, configuration or decoartion of your new product.
What is ‘passing off’?
“Passing Off” means someone is using an unregistered Trade Mark to represent goods or services as their own i.e. representing a link to another business and thus riding off the back of the goodwill and reputation of that business. As such, the offence of Passing Off prevents one party using the reputation and “get-up” of another party’s business and passing their products or services off as those of the other party.
What is an example of a trade secret?
A trade secret is an intellectual property right, but by definition the ‘secret’ information has not been disclosed to the general public. They are used to protect information such as process, method and formula. A famous example of a trade secret would be the secret recipe for Coca-Cola.
What is intellectual property ‘licensing’?
A licence is an agreement between you as the IP right owner and another party. It grants them permission to do something that would be an infringement of the rights without the licence.
IP can be “licensed-out” or “licensed-in”. You can “license-out” to another company in return for a fee. You can “license-in” if you want to use another company’s IP to develop your own business and products. The person granting the licence is usually called the licensor, and the person receiving the licence is usually called the licensee. There may be more than one licensor or more than one licensee in a licence agreement.
What is IP infringement?
If someone has used your intellectual property with your permission this is called ‘infringement’. Examples of IP infringement are ‘counterfeiting’ and ‘piracy’.
What is the difference between copyright, patent and trademark?
Copyright, patent, and trademark are all different types of intellectual property (IP). Although the three types of IP are very different, people often confuse them.
A copyright is a collection of rights automatically given to you once you have created an original work, including literature, music, art and software.
A patent protects inventions. These inventions can include new and useful processes, machines, manufactures, compositions of matter as well as improvements to these.
A trademark is a recognisable sign, design or expression which identifies products or services of a particular source from those of others. Examples include brand names, slogans, and logos.
What types of IP protection are automatic?
Both copyright and design rights are types of automatic IP protection. As soon as you create any original piece of work, whether it is written, drawn, recorded or broadcast – you get automatic copyright protection.
When would I use a non-disclosure agreement for IP?
You could use a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) to keep an invention a secret when discussing it with other people. An NDA is a legal contract which sets out how you share information or ideas in confidence.
Who owns IP produced by a consultant/self-employed person?
Without a written contract dealing with the matter, the consultant will be the owners of the IP. A good consultant’s contract will require IP to be assigned from the consultant to the business. If a consultant becomes an employee any IP rights owned by them should be transferred to the employer as part of the new employment contract.
Who owns the IP produced by an employee?
Generally, IP created by an employee in the course of their employment belongs to their employer, but if a patented invention is of ‘outstanding benefit’ the employee may claim compensation. A written contract of employment helps define and protect an employer’s IP rights.