Intellectual Property (IP) Litigation for Startups & SMEs

The Types of Intellectual Property Protection for Your Startup or SMEs

The first step towards protecting your IP rights is to know which legal tools are relevant to your startup. Patents, trademarks, and copyrights all have different functions, and the appropriate selection relies on what your startup is developing.

Patents

Both in the United States and globally, patent law protects inventors and innovators from those who aim to infringe upon their creations to gain undue monetary profit and market reputation.

Registering your patent under the IP laws grants you a monopoly on creating, using, or selling your invention. This can be something like a tangible product, a piece of equipment, an apparatus, or an original procedure serving as a trade secret for your business.

Registering patents requires knowledge and expertise due to the intricacies involved in the patent registration law.

Fortunately for you, our principal IP attorney holds considerable experience in this area and provides a robust patent strategy to his clients to seek the most effective, efficient, and cost-effective safeguard under the law.

At Drishti Law, our seasoned IP lawyer collaborates with business founders to draft and submit patent applications to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) for protection, so that the essential innovations driving your company are secure.

Trademarks

A trademark is the foremost safeguard acquired by any startup. As a business venture, you must have a logo, slogan, brand name, or even unique colors in that branding that represent the purpose of your business. 

By registering that brand identity, you are able to secure your trademark rights in the marketplace. Trademarks serve as your business identity in the market and differentiate it from the competitors.

The biggest advantage of possessing a valid trademark is that it prevents others from using similar marks for their ventures, which have the likelihood of causing confusion.

While certain rights are automatically acquired due to the geographic use of the mark, you must keep in mind that protection across the country can only be acquired through registration with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

At Drishti Law, our principal IP attorney specializing in trademarks can facilitate Federal Trademark Registrations for your brand elements, as a result of which you would be able to secure your company’s image as you expand its operations in a competitive market.

Copyright

If your start-up is a creative business, such as software development or artistic work, copyright law is a useful weapon to protect your work from those infringers who want to profit from your skill and creativity.

A copyright grants your business the sole right to use, display, distribute, and reproduce the work, and to make derivative works based on it.

Usually, the copyright protection is sought for art, music, dance, fine art, and literature. However, SMEs can also use it for business reports, corporate presentations, and even software code.

The primary requirement in this regard is that the idea has to be conveyed in a physical form, i.e., printed, saved electronically, or recorded, to qualify for protection.

Copyright protection comes automatically when you create a qualifying work, but registration with the U.S. Copyright Office makes your intellectual property rights more secure.

Our principal IP attorney at Drishti Law can walk you through the registration process as well as assist you in safeguarding the creative works that fuel your company.

Trade Secrets

Along with patents, trademarks, and copyrights, startups must also enforce their competitive advantage by use of trade secrets. Trade secrets refer to any confidential business information that is economically valuable. This could be anything ranging from customer lists to proprietary processes and formulas.

In contrast to other types of intellectual property, trade secrets are not registered under a legal framework. Instead, the protection lies in how effectively the information is kept secret.

That is to say, startups need to have internal security measures, e.g., making employees and contractors sign non-disclosure agreements and restricting access to confidential information on a need-to-know basis.

By learning about the entire scope of IP protections, startups can turn IP assets into powerful and profitable business assets. With the right legal expertise, SME owners are able to protect and enforce their IP rights, reduce infringement risk, and establish a solid foundation for long-term prosperity.

At Drishti Law, our principal IP attorney assists innovative enterprises in creating and executing specialized IP strategies that drive growth, investment, and a lasting competitive edge.