Intellectual property is the main asset of increasing business value and market potential. Failure to respect your business’s intellectual property can result in devastating consequences.
The violation of Amazon IP can bring your business under lawsuits and can be fined heavily. Many business owners think of their job to be done after they have registered patent, trademark, or copyright. The registration is only the beginning of the process.
The registration assures that the business owner has exclusive rights, while rights lose their value without implementation. Business owners should monitor whether third parties are infringing their rights or not. If yes, take reasonable actions to stop them.
Implementing an enforcement strategy on competitors for ceasing their operations due to copyrights issues can be costly, time-consuming, and frustrating. The best method is to discourage competitors from using or copying your IP.
Below are some strategies for discovering IP infringement and dealing with these problems.
Discouraging competitors from Infringement
After commercializing IP assets, it’s fundamentally important to communicate your rights clearly to competitors for discouraging violation. Usage of notices or marks for the indication of patent, trademark, or copyright ownership can reduce infringement issues as competitors will be put under notice that you have exclusive rights for your business. You can indicate IP rights in several ways:
- The symbol “®” is for the registered brands used for signifying ownership for trademarks.
- For copyrights, the symbol “©” indicates the copyright ownership for your business.
- For industrial design, the symbol used is “D, ” followed by the design’s owner’s name.
- Patent, the patent number shows that all the patent owner has all rights to this business.
IP infringement issues can also be prevented before having IP rights for the business. For this, the secret information related to your IP rights should be kept confidential. Or else, if you want to disclose the ideas under no protection, then it’s important for all participants to sign a non-disclosure agreement and IP protection clauses.
Monitoring IP used by competitors
To detect IP infringements, you can use traceable detection measures to find channels to see whether there are any products made and distributed that violate your IP rights.
Traceable Detection
Firstly, it’s important to mark your IP with uniqueness and such a way that it can be traceable when copied without your permission. It can be done in different ways. To detect copyrighted photos and videos, the watermark can be placed on copies to highlight ownership and tracing infringement. Audio watermarks also exist that can be verified at specific frequencies.
Protection against printed reference materials is also important to consider by identifying any fabricated information that is being used within products made by competitors. These methods are helpful because competitors will always try to mold some information before releasing their products in the market. The procedure is difficult but important for your business’s wellbeing.
Monitoring competitors
You should check other relevant industry channels to identify any infringement issues. Keep an eye on the market for checking any products and services advertised by competitors to check whether they are using your IP rights or not.
A good step to start this is monitoring competitors’ websites or social media pages. If it’s confusing for you to testify any infringement issues, then purchase the product or ask someone else to buy for you if you don’t want infringers to be alert. You can also visit industry shows and trade fairs to catch any infringement issues.
Also, keep an eye on new applications filed for IP rights in your dominion. If you think that the proposed trademark of the product is very similar to yours, you can oppose it before its registered.
Customers can also report infringement issues. You can ask customers to contact you if they find any IP violation by competitors. It can be a simple and productive way to avoid infringement issues.
Online tools for monitoring infringement issues
With the advancement of social media and the internet, it has become relatively useful for business owners to identify any IP violations conducted by their competitors. The internet provides several potential search functions for identifying any IP violation.
For instance, you can set up search engine alerts and notifications of keywords, which is helpful for the detection of any trademark infringement. Similar alerts can also be set up for tracking any keyword’s appearance on competitors’ social media pages. Once you have detected any infringement issues, take screenshots of that information for a prove to alert your competitors.
Websites archives are also helpful for establishing timelines of the time when content was shared and can help identify the company’s contact information behind infringement.
If you are operating your business on Amazon, then Amazon IP accelerator helps the business to obtain IP rights and brand protection in the Amazon store. It is helpful for your brand protection and prevents competitors from copying your IP rights. IP accelerator connects ecommerce businesses with reliable IP law firms which provide high-quality trademark registration services at reasonable and competitive prices.
Conclusion
Protection of IP rights is fundamental to enhancing your business value and market potential. The violations of IP rights are crucial for your business as they can decline your business reputation and result in loss.
To avoid IP infringement issues, multiple methods can be utilized. This article provides you with those methods that can be helpful for your business to prevent IP infringement issues. Read more