What is Intellectual Property?

 

Intellectual Property (IP) can be generally defined or described as the products of the mind or 'mental manufacturing'. The main areas of Intellectual Property are Patents, Trademarks, and Copyrights.

One of the things that you should know about IP is that there is overlap between the areas of law. It is possible that a single device can be patented, trademarked, and copyrighted. A device can be patented if the underlying components, processes, and materials add up to a novel and unique invention. That same device or product can be trademarked if it has a logo, name, or other symbol which acts as a source identifier. Moreover, the device can have some copyrightable elements if there is various artwork expression which is unique. Los Angeles Patent Attorney

 

 

Trade Secret Law

 

One of the lesser known areas of law is Trade Secret Law. Trade Secret Law is used to protect "secret recipes" which are generally difficult to reverse engineer. Trade Secret Law essentially prevents employees or other people from literally stealing those formulas or other secrets which are held in private by a person or company.

Note that Trade Secret Law will not offer protection against another competitor who either reverse engineers or arrives at that formula independently without any unlawful acquisition of IP.

How can IP be used to increase the value of your business?

 

If you are like most business owners, you would like to someday sell your business or corporation sometime down the road. And, as any business owner realizes, the process of appraising the value of a business is largely subjective, ambiguous, and arbitrary. That is where IP comes into play.

If your business has a portfolio of IP assets such as Patents, Trademarks, and Copyrights which go with the business, the process of providing objective assets and value is made easier. With a solid portfolio of IP assets, the elusive value of goodwill is made substantially clearer.