Protecting your business and your business Branding.

So you’ve thought of that great business idea. The one that’s going to turn you into the next steve Jobs or Richard Branson. Alot of entrepreneurs worry about the protection they have of a business idea with regards to someone else stealing that idea from them. So you need feedback from others but dont want to give too much away. I kind of get. in this article im going to give you a bit more of a rundown as to what the law sees regarding protection of your business. Firstly a business idea isn’t protected at all. All the time its in your head there cannot be any protection on it, as its only in your head, right. There are 4 main types of intellectual property (protection) that cover you idea. Heres a breakdown of each one.

 

Copyright

Copyright is the name given for protection of your work you have done and created. It stops anybody from using it wIthout your permission. For example, when viewing images on Google it says at the bottom “Images may be subject to copyright”. This means that the image you are viewing will have a copyright attachted to it, therefore you legally cannot screenshot or take that image and use it elsewhere without the image owners permission. Copyright protects

 

• original literary, dramatic, musical and artistic work, including illustration and photography
• original non-literary written work, eg software, web content and databases
• sound and music recordings
• film and television recordings
• broadcasts

You can protect all you work by adding (©) to the item, aswell as this you need to add your name or the creators name and the year the item was created. There are different lenghts of time a copyright lasts depending of the type of item you are protecting.

Trade Mark

A trade mark is a sign that you can use to distinguish your business goods or services from other businesses. A trademark can be represented graphically in the form of a company logo or signature.

A good example is the M which represents Mcdonalds fast food chain. This M would be a registered trademark. This is because just by seeing the M and the way it is graphically designed you assosiate that with Mcdonalds.

If another company where to use the M in there branding then this would breach trademark laws.

Patents

A patent is a protection against your invention or inventions. A patent gives you the right to take legal action against anyone who misuses youR product without your permission.
The process to getting a patent unfortunately isn’t a simply one, especially if you apply for a international patent. It takes on average 3-4 years for a patent to be granted.
The best way to go down the path of getting a patent it to seek professional advice through a patent attorney. This can be expensive but there experience can be invaluable.
A prime example of a patent is Dyson. Dysons vacuums are patented. This means that the engineering behind the product is patented so that it cannot be replicated elsewhere.

Design Right

Design right automatically protects a design you do. Simular to copyright this is an automatic right that last 15 years from when the design was first created. It is basically to stop anyone using your design of something.
Design right only applies to the appearance of the design. The shapes it has and how they contour with each other to give a final design.
If a dispute was to ever occur between you and someone else you would need proof that you created the design in order to claim against the design right legality. There are two ways of doing so

– You can keep copies or the originals of the designs with a bank or solicitor
– You can send copies of the designs to yourself via recorded delivery. If doing it this way then the envelope must remain unopened as you could effectively redo your designs.

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Although it is always a good idea to protect your business model whether it be an invention or a service, it does’nt nessesarily mean that you should worry about telling people of your idea.
Giving people the jist of it is ,enough but not to much, whereby they could steal it. The idea is in your head, the excecution, building, growing, passion of the business comes from you and this is what will take idea from your head to the real world.

Need more help on Protecting your business? Feel free to contact us using the site contact us page.
Alternatively click the link below which will direct you to the goverment agency that deals with the application and the process of protecting your business.

https://www.gov.uk/browse/business/intellectual-property