An IP Health Check could save the life of your business

The heart of your busi­ness may well be its intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty (“IP”). IP is sim­ply the legal prop­er­ty in the inno­va­tion in your busi­ness and it is that inno­va­tion which dri­ves your rev­enue and prof­it growth.

Your IP needs a reg­u­lar health check. It should be iden­ti­fied and pro­tect­ed so that the heart of your busi­ness is not at risk. Con­sid­er just a few poten­tial dan­gers to your IP:

• you fail to reg­is­ter com­pa­ny names or busi­ness names as trade marks;
• you do not reg­is­ter your trade marks for all good or ser­vices you supply;
• your major trade marks are not pro­tect­ed in key countries;
• you do not own the copy­right in your key soft­ware or website;
• you are unaware of the moral rights of your employees;
• some of your patents and designs are owned by defunct companies;
• you are destroy­ing the nov­el­ty of your inven­tions and designs through poor secre­cy procedures;
• you do not include IP pro­vi­sions in your employ­ment agreements.

Any of the above poten­tial dan­gers can lead to a busi­ness heart attack when it is least expect­ed. We sug­gest that you sit down with your legal prac­ti­tion­er and have a heart-to-heart chat about your IP. Reme­di­al action can be quick and rel­a­tive­ly inex­pen­sive. Fail­ure to rem­e­dy the mal­a­dy can be fatal.

Swaab Attor­neys offers its clients a free IP Heath Check. One of our lawyers will be hap­py to vis­it you and go through a sim­ple check­list. This is a free ser­vice which should take no more than an hour or so to com­plete. Your busi­ness deserves it.