New start-ups and business owners are often caught up in the day-to-day running of the business. From the perspective of new business owners - especially owners of businesses in the areas of training, speaking and coaching - landing the next deal, creating new programmes, and paying the bills seem to always take center stage.
If you are a new business owner, or if you are new in the public speaking, training and coaching industry, this article is specially written for you. It is vital to take a moment to consider the importance that intellectual property, in spite of the other priorities you might have at the moment, for the protection of your intellectual property could potentially make or break your business. You can do so by registering trademarks for your key brands, logos and names; copyrights for your training materials, syllabus and books; or by creating a patent for any invention, device or prototype you have.
Allow me to convince you why you should engage in intellectual property protect, especially at the onset of your business.
Reason #1: Protecting your intellectual property helps you avoid future costs and trouble
By protecting your rights to the content and materials you have created, you essentially minimize any opportunities that others (especially your competitors) can lay claim on your intellectual treasures in the future. For example, if you have trademarked your logo, and in the future when your business is booming, your future competitors will know that they will be legally disadvantaged if they were to directly copy your trademarks. This thus create a barrier to prevent them from doing so. And in the event they still decided to copy off your trademarks, the legal directive are to your favor.
Reason #2: You can monetize your intellectual property
By creating a treasure trove of copyrighted materials, with a respectable brand name protected by trademarks, you can monetize these intangible assets by selling the business in the future, or by raising capital from investors from business expansion.
Reason #3: You can solidify your brand name
Finally, your trademarks and copyrighted materials represent the competitive advantage your business has over your competitors. By protecting them, you lower the chances that others can lay claim to the intellectual assets that are truly yours. Your competitors will thus have to innovate and work harder to produce something better if they will ever want to diminish the market power of your intellectual properties.
Conclusion
These are the three big reasons why you ought to consider protecting your intellectual property even if you are just a new business owner. The long-term benefits for doing so are plentiful, and you might very well be building the next multi-million dollar intellectual property business!
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