Protect intellectual property

From our NISER (National Institute of Socio-Economic & Environmental Research) offices at 49 Maple Street in Cooroy we incubate, encourage and accommodate several different businesses.

Ffrench Commercial Lawyers, from Southport are the latest arrival to our enterprise and I welcome their superb expertise in Intellectual Property and in Commercial Law. I see Ffrench Commercial Lawyers as a perfect adjunct to the specialist businesses we now present to the community. Ffrench Commercial Lawyers representatives will be based from our Cooroy office at least one day a fortnight.

Intellectual property represents the property of your mind or intellect. In business terms, this also means your proprietary knowledge. As a business owner becomes more familiar with IP and the potential value that it can bring to their business it is most important that IP is identified and protected from creation.

Business owners do not always have the necessary skills to neither identify IP in their business nor know how to protect it or how to exploit its value.

There are three main stages in turning the IP of a business into profit and in this column we will look at the first stage.

Identification

Due to the intangible nature of IP, many business owners are not aware of what constitutes IP and will often seek the services of a professional to undertake an IP audit.

An IP audit is a review of business structures and activities within a business with the objective of indentifying the existing IP assets. Upon completion of an IP audit, a business owner should have:

• Valuable information about the IP assets that their business owns
• Identification of any risks to their IP or title defects
• An outline of any other risks such as infringement of third party rights
• A developed IP register which can be used to identify the IP of their business and can be implemented in their business strategies.

An IP audit will also identify the importance of the IP to the current and future profitability of their business, through proper management and exploitation of commercialisation opportunities.

Through the specialised knowledge in this area Ffrench Commercial Lawyers representatives are able to provide the knowledge necessary for business owners and can identify what constitutes IP in their business. I urge business owners to identify their Intellectual property through consultation with an IP professional.

In future columns I will talk about protecting business IP and ultimately realising the commercialisation of IP.

For further information on this column or to contact Ffrench Commercial Lawyers please contact NISER on 5442 550 or niser@niser.org.au.

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