Understanding Intellectual Property

What is Intellectual Property?

Intellectual property (IP) are creations of the mind that a person or entities owns. Intellectual property rights are those rights afforded to the owner of IP, typically the exclusive right to commercially use IP for a fixed time. Known as intangible assets, IP can provide a critical competitive advantage over your competitors.

Types of IP

IP comes in three types: trademarks, copyright, and patents.

Trademarks protect your specific business name, logo, and other aspects of your business brand.

Copyright protects original works of authorship, such as written documents, poetry, music, and software code.

Patents protect inventions, such as new technologies, products, processes, and designs.

Trade secrets protect any process, technology, or know-how by keeping the knowledge internal to the company.

Which is right for you?

We offer a free tool to help you figure asses your intellectual property. Once you're done, reach out to us and we'll help connect you with the resources you need to take the next steps.

Protecting IP

Figuring out what type of IP you have, and how you want to protect it, is just the start. You need to also decide where to protect it, and to what extent, and in most cases you'll need an experienced attorney who knows how to correctly write and file any protection filings. You also will want an NDA or, if you're paying someone to develop your IP (for instance, a graphic designer to design your logo), contractual agreements that clearly stipulate who owns the resulting IP and any assets used to create it.

We’ve worked with many clients to protect their inventions and their brand. We'll help you, too.

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