Top Ten Tips on Intellectual Property Best Practices for Small Businesses
Everyone knows high tech businesses derive most of their value from intellectual property. However, in our digitized world of information overload, few businesses really know how to “separate the wheat from the chaff.” The reality is every business can build and sustain a competitive advantage by properly leveraging its intellectual property. Your legal counsel can add tremendous value to your organization by ensuring proper identification and legal protection for these valuable but intangible assets. The following is our monthly Top Ten Tip on IP Best Practices for Small Businesses.
Tip #6. Staff Properly. Most small businesses do not have in-house legal counsel, and many rely on smaller law firms or general practitioners to serve as their general counsel. Because IP law is so specialized, utilizing a general practice law firm to handle your IP issues is often NOT the best choice for small businesses. Your general counsel’s time can be better spent managing an IP specialist. Experienced IP counsel will have more efficient processes for handling basic tasks such as trademark and copyright searches, filings and renewals, as well as maintaining their own docketing system to ensure timely renewals. Patents are an entirely different matter. Generally, hiring a licensed patent attorney is a must if your company has a patent worthy product or formula which can generate sufficient revenue to justify the cost of hiring a patent attorney.
RSS Feed