Azrights IP One – Intellectual Property Made Easy
There is no one size fits all when it comes to the actions you need to take to secure your IP. Protecting IP might involve doing some due diligence searches, registering rights, using appropriate documentation, and more. Your IP protection strategy will depend on your business plans, and overall objectives. For example, a business with a product like C-Pen will need patent advice, among other things. On the other hand, an author setting out to write a book, such as JK Rowling of Harry Potter fame, What JK Rowling Needed to Know About Intellectual Property will need advice on copyright primarily. Both might want advice on trademarks too.
IPOne
So, we’ve introduced a new service: IPOne to offer SMEs the strategic IP advice they need regardless of their business or IP profile. The prices are fixed. We’re working on a tech version of this, which when launched, will give start ups on a shoe string budget access to the IP advice they need before they start up. This will be released later in 2017.
Why we created the IPOne service
We created the IPOne service because clients sometimes asked us for a comprehensive review of their IP position, and we had no specific service offering with clear deliverables to propose to them. Another reason we created the IPOne was that occasionally we noticed businesses that seemed to be focusing their IP expenditure on the wrong IP protection. For example, in one case, an SME with a successful operation in the EU and USA, with no trademark protection in place at all, decided to spend a considerable amount of money on filing a US patent for a business process that was unlikely to result in a strong patent, if it succeeded at all. With proper advice this business would have known to get some trademark protection, strategically maximising its budget.
Another reason we introduced the service was when we noticed how many SMEs were registering a trademark without first commissioning any searches, or using IP without doing due diligence checks.
The problem
Invariably our most popular service is trademark registration. Trademarks have, to some extent, become a commoditized service due to the large number of service providers, many of them unqualified, who offer low cost trademark services. Businesses are even encouraged to believe trademarks are simple enough for them to draft themselves.
As a law firm we were conscious of the risks clients faced in requesting a single service like trademark registration, when they had a host of other IP issues they were not even aware of. Yet the going rate for trademark registration was insufficient to allow scope for incidental advice on other IP rights.
Whenever it was clear that a client needed to take wider advice, we would highlight this to them. However, as the IP needs of businesses vary so much depending on the business model, IP advice doesn’t lend itself to being addressed in passing. It’s necessary to understand the client’s business model and aspirations in order to give relevant advice.
Intellectual Property also often involves a large element of education. So, it’s time consuming to communicate IP issues to SMEs, and advise on how they should structure their processes to be protected on an ongoing basis. The other problem we had is how to offer a price so clients would know in advance how much they would need to pay for holistic IP advice regardless of whether their business model would require a focus on patents, trademarks, designs, copyright, trade secrets, or database rights. Giving an hourly rate and estimating the number of hours involved to advise isn’t straightforward to do when you don’t yet know enough about the client’s business model.
Who’s it for?
The IPOne service is for small businesses of fewer than 10 staff, be they pre-start up, early stage, or established. Every business that is aiming to build value or who simply wants to avoid some of the unpleasant consequences that can befall the unwary if they infringe on the rights of third parties, needs the IPOne.
When you have a good idea for a product or service, what you’re doing when you bring it to life is that you’re creating intellectual property. Virtually every decision you make in the early days of a project, from choosing a name, having a website or logo designed for you, writing content, creating a data plan, or taking some other creative action, has IP implications.
If you wait till you’re successful before taking IP advice it can be too late. IP needs to be taken account of early on if you want to avoid the need to undo ill considered actions later on. By then you might have already built something successful, and if its foundations are shaky it could have very serious consequences for you. So if you want to wait to address IP issues till your business has taken off, then consider whether it is possible to make all your decisions temporary ones? If not, it could be too late to leave IP advice till your concept is proven. Prevention really is ten times cheaper than a cure.
What’s different about the IPOne service?
The IPOne service is a fixed price service to give you holistic IP advice. It includes deliverables that SMEs invariably need, such as legal agreements, and a letter of advice, as well as a one to one consultation to ensure you take steps that are appropriate to your unique business requirements. A few key actions will set you up with strong foundations, giving you 80 per cent of the protection you need, short of registering your IP rights. All our IPOne services include advice on the steps to take in order to obtain this wide ranging IP protection on an ongoing basis.
What will clients get at the end of it?
After you’ve had advice and holistic IP guidance your business can proceed to determine its strategy for securing its IP. Some SMEs may be better placed to obtain a legal monopoly, create new income streams or otherwise use IP to grow profit margins and protect their market share. You will be more able to protect the effort you put into building your business by knowing how to prevent competitors from copying you in damaging ways.
What Next?
The IPOne service responds to a market need for tailored IP advice giving a holistic view on the IP issues pertinent to any small business.
We want to change the way business protects its IP so SMEs are properly aware of the implications of their decisions when implementing their ideas, and know what to do on an ongoing basis to be protected.
