The Legal Blog

Introducing The Coronavirus and Small Business Law Series.

This first blog post discusses Intellectual Property Law

You are confident and committed and destined to “Wow the World” with your business! You are working day and night to create something amazing. That something amazing includes Intellectual Property.

Then the Coronavirus comes to town.

Suddenly the unknown vulnerability and worry leaves you feeling a bit overwhelmed. What are your legal risks?

That’s where I come in.

This blog post series provides key legal strategies, practices, and policies to help you secure your business success during the Coronavirus pandemic.

WITH THIS KNOWLEDGE, YOU CAN RETURN TO WHAT YOU DO BEST – YOUR SERVICE OR PRODUCT.

Topic #1: Protecting Your IP

Key Intellectual Property Strategies

You work hard to build your business, differentiating yourself in the market. You provide best-in-class new products and services for your customers. The novel and unique aspects of that differentiation is your intellectual property.

In today’s open environment, with remote and distant working recommended, it’s important to protect your business’s intellectual property.  Being proactive, in the long run you will save time and money.

Promoting a culture of intellectual property protection, for example, will set your business apart from competitors, increase your business valuation, and protect your investments.

Why Worry About Protecting Your IP?

• Business Value
• Freedom of Action
• Competitive Advantage
• Competitive Positioning
• Licensing Royalties
• Litigation Avoidance

Now is a great time to launch an internal awareness campaign.  For example, provide employee training, communicate best practices, and share your policies.

Here’s a Catch Phrase I like to use:  “Pause to Protect IP”.

Key Intellectual Property Practices

Coronavirus “social distancing” adds a new challenge to protecting against “IP Leakage”.

With email, text messaging, telephone calls, and video conferencing, consequently, IP leakage can occur.

Specifically, Communicate best practices such as:

• Limit messaging streams to one topic (e.g., one product, one idea, one question, etc.)
• Practice the “WSJ” rule (e.g., imagine your message on the front page of the Wall Street Journal)
• Do not make legally conclusive statements
• Limit distribution of confidential messages to a controlled group
• Mark confidential and/or privileged messages as such

 

Key Intellectual Property Policies

While operating your business remotely, try to ensure your confidential information is not misused.  For example, restrict confidential information to those with a “need to know.”

Remote work during this Coronavirus pandemic may leave your document and data systems vulnerable. Therefore, implement security systems to detect and stop unauthorized access.

Notably, be sure you have key policies covering confidentiality, document marking, document sharing, privacy protection, device and server security.

 

IMPLEMENT THESE STRATEGIES, PRACTICES, AND POLICIES TODAY TO SECURE YOUR BUSINESS SUCCESS.

Ready to learn more?  Check out Topic #2 Bring Your Own Device Solutions.

Do you need help implementing Intellectual Property strategies, practices, and policies? Does your organization need Intellectual Property training? I can help. Contact me here.