3: Protect your intellectual property

Working hard at a business only for a competitor to steal your product, idea, or brand is a nightmare for any entrepreneur. To avoid this risk, all startups or small businesses should make sure that they own their intellectual property.

Protect your brand name

You may think that registering your company name through incorporation will mean that the name it is protected. This isn’t the case. A trade mark is the only way that you will be able to prevent another business from infringing on your brand. Using a business name without registering it will give you some rights to that name, but if you want to sue someone for using the same or a similar name, you will only succeed if you can prove that you have built a reputation in the name and suffered actual damage as a result of the other person using it. Proving this can be a very difficult and expensive exercise in court. However, the good news is that these requirements do not have to be fulfilled if you have a trade mark registration. So let’s drive this home - although it will cost money and can take time to process, you need to register your brand name as a trade mark if you want to truly own it and be able to protect it. Registering the trade mark isn’t where the work ends, you will also need to police the mark.

Before registering your trade mark, you should conduct a trade mark search to make sure that your mark or a similar mark is not already registered in your jurisdiction. In fact before choosing your brand name, you should check that you aren’t infringing on someone else’s trade mark. The last thing you want as a startup is to be on the receiving end of an infringement action!

To learn more about how to establish, register and maintain your trade mark, check out or other eBook:

FREE eBOOK: Own Your Trade Mark

Don’t discuss your idea carelessly

In the excitement of having found a great idea for your business, it’s natural to want to share it with family and friends. In fact, many startups have been shaped by the support and invaluable advice of those close to the founders. But be careful! Remember, once an idea is out there, it can’t be drawn back in. The idea may be stolen and used by others, and it may even find its way to your competitors. If you are looking for potential business partners or employees, consultants, or interns, and will therefore share your business ideas with them, you should always ask them to sign a Confidentiality Agreement (also known as a non-disclosure agreement, or NDA), under which they are legally bound not to disclose or discuss your idea or any other confidential information with a third party.

Be sure you own your intellectual property

As a startup or small business, you might engage the services of others to create or develop your ideas. For starters, you might enter into a contract with a graphic designer to design your logo. Or your employee might develop certain software for your online app. Or the head chef at your restaurant might create the perfect recipe for apple pie! Who do you think owns the logo? Who owns the software, and who owns that perfect recipe?

Arrangements with third parties

If you commission a design agency to design a logo for you, they own the copyright in that logo unless there is an agreement in place stating the contrary. So, if you have a logo that a third party designed for you, you must arrange for the copyright of that logo to be assigned to your business. That way, your business will own the intellectual property rights to the logo and you will be free to do as you please with it. Make sure to add a clause in your Consultancy Agreement to stipulate that you get full and exclusive rights to the copyright. Similarly, you should make sure that any Employment Contract, and in fact any contract with a third party in which the third party has been commissioned to create something for you, includes an assignment of all proprietary content to your business. This will ensure that any inventions, ideas, products, or services developed by the employee during the term of employment and related to the business belong to your business and not the employee. Don’t find yourself in a situation fighting over ownership and creation of any proprietary material.

How to protect your trade mark using Dragon Law

• Sign up and contact us in the livechat
• We ask you a few questions and guide you through the process. It’s easy and takes only a few minutes.
• We liaise with the Trade Marks Registry
• We do the paperwork and manage the application for you.
• You receive registration certificate
• Upon registration of your trade mark, we will deliver the registration certificate to you.

Different types of intellectual property

Trade marks

Words, designs, or phrases that serve as “the brand” for a product or service.

Patents

Ideas or concepts that are novel and non-obvious.

Copyrights

Creative expressions, such as prose, music, or video.

Trade secrets

Commercial information which is not disclosed to the public.