Jennifer L. Madden, Esq.
Every business owner understands the importance of insurance.
Insuring your building, your inventory and your employees all has become a necessary expense intrinsic to owning your own business in today’s world. So, insuring your property is not a new concept to most business owners.
But what about insuring your intellectual property? What is intellectual property, and how do you protect it?
Intellectual property traditionally has covered four things. They are patents, copyrights, trade secrets and trademarks. Patents protect inventions. Copyrights protect works of authorship, such as books and movies. Trade secrets protect, you guessed it, secrets, specifically those which can make money for your business. Trademarks protect source identifiers, such as business logos.
Trademark law was established to protect consumers from confusion as to which company produced what product. Consequently, trademark laws protect the goodwill of the business. What is goodwill, and why is it important? Your goodwill can best be described as your reputation—how your customers, suppliers and the rest of the business community views your business and your product.
So, how do you protect it? Not with traditional insurance like the policies you have for your building and employees, but through enforcement of your legal rights. Those legal rights may be acquired through simply using your product in business, or through a complex government administrative procedure.
The reality is most business owners do not understand what rights they have. That is where Bechtold and Madden Law, PLLC comes in. We provide each client with the information needed to make the right business decision for the company. This is about your bottom line, and making your business a long-term success.
For more information about insuring intellectual property or other insurance matters, call Bechtold and Madden Law at (602) 730-8999.