Imagine: You’re an entrepreneur working hard in the lab or slaving over a hot yellow legal pad coming up with the next big idea; the next invention that is going to change everything. Finally you arrive at the solution! You rush into the streets, into a grocery store and shout it out at the top of your lungs.
A week later you wake up to a knock. A man gives you a subpoena.
Someone heard your idea in the grocery store, got the property protected and is now suing you. Okay, that may be an extreme example and any savvy entrepreneur would not be quite so dramatic about announcing their idea in such a way, but the moral of the story remains that you must identify and protect your intellectual property (IP) before your share it with others. While the importance is clear, many entrepreneurs don’t know how to protect an idea or invention.
And it can be as simple as actually owning your IP. I have spoken with quite a few entrepreneurs over the last few weeks who admitted their IP was not the first thing on their mind when starting their business. They were concerned with space rentals, creating a logo, equipment purchases, hiring employees—
One solution to the intellectual property problem is to hire a lawyer. However, there’s no guarantee that your invention will sell, or your idea for a business will ever take off. As an industrious entrepreneur of course you have many more ideas than you could ever use, but are you willing to plunk down 5000 dollars with an idea that may never fruit?
Our first recommendation is that the entrepreneur identify their intellectual property. This will help to determine what parts of the invention or idea are capable of being protected. Our solution is ID your IP® which also benefits the entrepreneur in that they will own a documented list of all the IP they have and each detail associated with that asset. Having this documentation also helps the entrepreneur increase the valuation of their business for potential investors.
Secondly, we would recommend storing any IP documentation securely. With encrypted, time-stamped storage, our IP Vault® offers a solid legal defense to protect your idea or invention should another individual claim they came up with it first.
If you are an entrepreneur looking to identify, manage, or protect your IP, get started with Traklight today.
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