IP Consulting for the Strategic Use of IP Assets

Transcript:IP Consulting for the Strategic Use of IP Assets:
IP Consulting for the Strategic Use of IP Assets in Business Delivered By Yahaya Maikori Principal Partner- Law Allianz Introduction At no other time in History has Intellectual Property been as valuable as it is now. Ideas, innovations and other intellectual based assets are rapidly replacing land, energy, raw materials and labor as the engines of growth for many companies around the world. According to former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, as much as 75 percent of the value of publicity traded companies in the United States can be attributed to intangible assets up from 40 percent in the early 1980s. However, the value of intellectual property is usually underappreciated especially in developing countries such as ours. The challenge is for companies to understand the value of their intangible assets for the purposes of maximizing business growth opportunities. This is where Intellectual Property Consulting becomes important. What is Intellectual Property? Intellectual property (IP) refers to creations of the mind: inventions, literary and artistic works, and symbols, names, images, and designs used in commerce. IP is divided into two categories: Industrial property, which includes inventions (patents), trademarks, as well as industrial designs, and Copyright, which includes literary and artistic works such as novels, poems and plays, films, musical works, artistic works such as drawings, paintings, photographs and sculptures, and architectural designs. Rights related to copyright include those of performing artists in their performances, producers of phonograms in their recordings, and those of broadcasters in their radio and television programs. Types of intellectual property In general, there are five basic types of intellectual property work that attorneys do. While this list could certainly be toyed with after some debate, for all intents and purposes, these areas are: Trademark Copyright Trade Secret Patent Licensing Trademark Trademark law protects words, phrases, logos, or symbols used to distinguish one product from another. In circumstances where a competitor uses a protected trademark, the holder of the trademark can go to court and obtain an injunction to stop the use. Copyright Copyright Law. Copyright law protects the creators of expressive works, such as artists, photographers, writers, and musicians and gives them the exclusive right to protect how their works are used. It is important to note that unlike trademark law, copyright law does not protect names or titles, for example. One way that copyright law can be distinguished from trademark law is in the advertising context. Trademark