When you come up with an amazing product idea and you plan to launch a business, it’s so important you protect your innovation. If the idea is really as good as you think it is, other companies will want to copy it and produce their own versions and in a lot of cases, they might be able to price you out of the market if they are a large company, so you have to be very careful. People tend to think that protecting your intellectual property is as simple as putting a patent on something, but that doesn’t guarantee that nobody can steal your idea. If you are worried about your product ideas being recreated, you need to take these steps to protect your intellectual property.
- Think Twice About Patents
Most business owners assume that they need to get a patent right away if they want to protect their idea but that isn’t always the best thing to do. When you get a patent, it goes on public record and everybody can access it. That means that you’re giving your competitors instructions on how to create your product and even though they cannot make it exactly as you have, you may still be at risk. It’s fairly common for people to take the patent and then tweak the design so they can get around it and create a very similar product without breaking the law.
- Look Out for Counterfeits
Regardless of whether you have a patent or not, there is always a chance that people will try to sell counterfeits of your product. If they’re using your branding and name to sell low quality versions of your product, that reflects very badly on you so you need to stay on top of it as much as possible. Bigger sites like Amazon have a significant problem with counterfeit items from third party sellers so you need to do a search for your product name and any variations on a regular basis. If you find something, you should report Amazon infringement right away and have the products removed. Consumers can’t always tell the difference between a fake and the real thing, so it could reflect badly on your business if these products are allowed to stay online.
- Avoid Joint Ownership
When you go into business, it’s often a good idea to find a business partner to work with. It makes it easier to fund the business and you have a larger skillset to draw on, so the business is more likely to be a success. However, you need to be careful when organizing the structure of the partnership and deciding who owns what. When it comes to intellectual property, you should always avoid joint ownership because it can cause you a lot of problems in the future if there are any disagreements between you and your partner.
These are all important steps to take, but more generally, you should try to limit the number of people that know the full design and manufacturing process of your product and only give that information to people that absolutely need it. If you can do that, you should be able to protect your intellectual property.
