Patent litigation firms are great at protecting the intellectual property of a business.
Patent litigation firms often work to protect a wide range of intellectual property rights, which many businesses have. Just because a business doesn’t deal with technology or something that’s protected by a patent doesn’t mean they don’t have intellectual property that’s worth protecting. The following is a brief explanation of how these law firms can help protect a business when it comes to patents and other forms of intellectual property.
Law Firms That Do More than Just Patents
Patent law firms, as a matter of diversification, will often handle other types of legal matters. So the above subtitle is a generalization, but it’s usually true, as patents are just one type of intellectual property law. Other types include trademarks, trade secrets and copyrights.
Trademarks refer to a mark, such as a color, sign, symbol or expression that helps identify a company or product. A classic example of a trademark would be the McDonald’s golden arches that you typically see on a red background. Almost everyone across the world will immediately recognize that symbol and know what it represents.
A copyright is a type of legal protection for a created work, such as a song, painting or movie. It provides the copyright holder exclusive rights to profit from the work or do anything else they want with it.
Businesses without Patents Should Still Care about Intellectual Property
Just because a business doesn’t deal with patents, doesn’t mean they can’t use the services of these law firms. Even the smallest mom-and-pop store probably has at least a few protectable intellectual property rights. For example, they might have a slogan that identifies their business. Or maybe they have a logo or business name that’s very distinctive; anyone in the local community will automatically associate it with the mom-and-pop business. The last thing they want is some other upstart business to use their name, slogan or other identifying symbol or expression to take advantage of the goodwill the mom-and-pop business took decades to create. An intellectual property attorney can help the mom-and-pop business prevent this from happening and provide legal protections to the business’ name, slogan or logo.
Another good example of a mom-and-pop business’ intellectual property is trade secrets, like a confidential customer list or a secret recipe. Perhaps the owners want to hire a new salesperson but are afraid the new hire might work for just a few months, then quit, taking the identities of existing customers with him. A qualified intellectual property law attorney can help prepare a contract to reduce the chances of this happening.
Preventing Potential Lawsuits
An intellectual property attorney from the right law firm will do more than protect the business from others trying to steal intellectual property. It will also protect the business from violating the intellectual property rights of others. For instance, maybe the above hypothetical mom-and-pop shop wants to run a new ad campaign and use the likeness of a popular cartoon character. Before the ad campaign begins, the attorney can warn the owners of the business of the potential legal risk they face from the company or individual that owns the rights to the cartoon character.
So before the mom-and-pop business becomes a defendant in a lawsuit after spending thousands of dollars on marketing materials, local TV commercials spots and revamping their website, their attorney can prevent the potential intellectual property violation from ever taking place.
Click to learn more about patent litigation firms by contacting our team at Wilbanks Law Firm, P.C. online now.