So, How Does this Affect Your Business?
Regardless of what product your enterprise makes or what service it provides, it
is likely that it is regularly using and creating a great deal of intellectual
property.
This being the case, you should systematically consider the steps
required for protecting, managing and enforcing it, so as to get the best
possible commercial results from its ownership.
If you are using intellectual
property that belongs to others, then you should consider
buying it or acquiring
the rights to use it by taking a license in order to avoid a dispute and
consequent expensive litigation.
Almost
every SME has a trade name or one or more trademarks and should consider
protecting them.
Most SMEs will have valuable confidential business information,
from customers' lists to
sales tactics
that they may wish to protect.
A large number would have developed
creative
original designs. Many would have produced, or assisted in the publication,
dissemination or retailing of a copyrighted work. Some may have
invented or
improved a product or service.
In all
such cases, your SME should consider how best to use the IP system to its own
benefit. Remember that IP may assist your SME in almost every aspect of your
business
development
and
competitive strategy:
from
product development to
product design, from service delivery to
marketing,
and from
raising financial resources
to exporting or expanding your business
abroad through
licensing or franchising.
To find
out how all this and many other things may happen, follow through the pages of
this web site and discover the world of intellectual property and the
opportunities it offers to your SME.