Safeguarding your good ideas

Oct 14 2009 By The Journal

Alex Shiel, partner and head of intellectual property and IT at Ward Hadaway, outlines why protecting and exploiting ideas is crucial to success in business.

THE first thing to strike you about this year’s list of the region's Fastest 50 growing companies is the sheer diversity of businesses which have risen to the challenging times and successfully grown.

Any run-down which takes you from a golfing holiday in the Algarve to the bottom of the North Sea is pretty much a by-word for variety. However, no matter how different each of these businesses is to the other, they all have something in common.

Each of them has developed a way to use the value of the ideas they have generated – their intellectual property – to further their businesses and expand their companies.

Whilst providing a handy term to describe this process, intellectual property is not a ‘one size fits all’ thing, but an asset which all businesses choose to employ in different ways to suit their particular business, the stage of its development and the business model they have chosen to adopt.

For example, for one kind of company such as Soil Machine Dynamics, investment in patenting technology is of primary importance, but for a software company like 4Projects, securing and using copyright is the priority.

For other companies, particularly those selling to consumer audiences such as Fentimans or The Inta Group, investing in trademarks and other forms of brand protection are important to help them distinguish themselves from their competitors in the marketplace.

So protecting the intellectual property which you already have is vital for any business and can be done in a variety of ways.

At Ward Hadaway, our experienced intellectual property team works in partnership with a whole range of companies, from university spin-outs to established major players, to come up with innovative solutions that enable them to make the most of the ideas that they have developed.

Companies also need to take into account the international dimension when it comes to intellectual property.

The vast array of different markets across the globe offers fantastic potential for businesses to sell their goods and services, whether directly or via agents or licensing agreements.

However, combined with the way that technological developments have shrunk the world, this profusion of territories also offers much greater scope for ideas to be copied and sold on by those who have put in no time and effort to develop them.

As a result, the need to fully protect your intellectual property across the world is more important than ever.

As well as protecting the value of what companies have already developed, we also work to help unlock the potential of ideas at the earliest stages, including working with start-up companies who will hopefully be in future Fastest 50 lists through our Ideas-Lab initiative.

Working with design experts at Northumbria University, this scheme looked at ways to make the most of the region’s hidden gems, using a novel analytical tool to help develop previously under-used ideas and give a boost to the companies behind them.

Like the Fastest 50, the project showed the abundance of ideas and talent which the region has to offer and which, if harnessed in the right way, could prove to be of great value for the future.

Alex Shiel is one of the leading intellectual property lawyers in the North East. For advice and assistance on the issues above, or any other intellectual property matter, please contact Alex at alex.shiel@wardhadaway.com  or on (0191) 204-4296.