Anything that you invent is legally yours. However, if you do not protect your intellectual property, somebody could steal it. Intellectual property rights exist to stop thieves from stealing people’s ideas and then profiting from them. The average person has absolutely no knowledge about intellectual property rights, however, which leads to them making careless mistakes relative to their handling of their intellectual property. This post’s intention is to educate you on the importance of intellectual property rights (and how they work) so that nobody takes advantage of you and receives credit for your creations.
IP Lawyers
If you have intellectual property that you want to be protected, get in touch with a lawyer. A lawyer’s help will prove invaluable. A lot of people make the mistake of trying to file copyrights or trademarks themselves. It’s possible to do this but it is not the best idea. By deciding to speak with a lawyer, you will get professional care and guidance. A lawyer will be able to talk you through the nuances of your case and develop a plan that’s tailored to your needs. You need to make sure that you are transparent and upfront with your lawyer about what your concept is so that they can protect it effectively. Make sure that you mention to them if anybody has expressed interest in your ideas or if you think that they have already stolen them from you.
Hiring a lawyer can be difficult, however. You need to find one who’s positively reviewed and has lots of experience in copyright and trademark law. A good way to tell whether a lawyer is experienced is to check out their personal LinkedIn page. LinkedIn is the web’s largest business networking platform. Nearly all business professionals have pages on there. On the lawyer’s LinkedIn page, you should be able to see the schools and colleges that they went to and the previous firms that they have worked in. Checking out your lawyer’s past employers and places that they studied can help you to build a picture of what they’re like as a person and how they are going to be to work with. Any questions you have about your lawyer’s experience should be directed to them. Make sure that you are upfront about any concerns that you have so they can put them to rest.
Financial Benefits
Copyrighting your intellectual property comes with financial benefits. For starters, you won’t have to worry about anybody stealing and then profiting from your ideas. Secondly, legal ownership of an idea means you can then sell it. Selling ideas is something that’ll be covered more extensively in the next section. Going back to theft, if an idea you’ve come up with is stolen, the thief can then sell it and make money from it. They won’t have to give you anything if your idea isn’t protected. However, if a person steals your idea and uses it without your permission and it is copyrighted or trademarked, you can demand legal compensation back from them.
Most experts agree that you should trademark or copyright your ideas as soon as you have developed and worked them out. Do not tell anybody about your ideas until they are protected. Something else to note is that it’s entirely possible that somebody could come up with a similar idea to yours at the same time you are. Protecting ideas as soon as they have been developed protects you in the event of another person coming up with an idea that is along the same lines as yours. Keep a paper trail of the development of your ideas so that you can prove they were always yours, even pre-protection.
Selling Ideas
As mentioned in the section above, it is possible to sell the ideas that you have protected. Selling your ideas is one of the most effective ways of profiting from them. In addition to selling them, you can of course turn them into businesses, provided they’re good enough for that. Many people make money from selling ideas, though. If you are not able to turn your idea into a business because you do not have enough money or because it would not be sustainable to do this, selling them online can mean somebody else can buy them and turn them into a reality.
If you are going to sell your ideas, you need to find a good platform to sell them on. You also need to make sure that every stage of the marketing and selling process is monitored by an attorney. When you are sharing ideas with people to convince them to purchase them, make sure that you ask them to sign non-disclosure agreements first. An NDA will protect your ideas and prevent anybody from being able to take your ideas covertly. If anybody breaches the terms of an NDA, you can take them to court.
Immediate Action
If you have any ideas that you want to protect, make sure that you take immediate action. The longer you take to protect your ideas, the more likely it is that somebody will be able to steal. Immediate action means that your ideas are secure and protected. The copyright and trademark processes do not take that long. An attorney will be able to complete them for you in no time. Once the process has begun, your items are basically protected anyway.
If you ever notice that somebody has stolen your ideas, you also need to take immediate action against them. The sooner you file a legal complaint against somebody that has stolen one of your ideas, the sooner you will get financial compensation. You will be entitled to every single penny they have profited from your ideas if they have stolen them. If the person who stole your idea is somebody you were previously close to or did business with, your case will be even stronger, and you can sue them for even more.
Intellectual property theft is a serious crime. It’s something that’s becoming a lot more prevalent in today’s highly digitized age where everybody shares their ideas online. Make sure that you get in touch with a lawyer and pay them to protect your ideas for you.