Protect your great ideas

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY: THE BEST WAY

Recent bouts of plagiarism have increased awareness.

Developing a new product or concept that has not been invented before is no easy task. It requires creativity, boldness and patience but even after development, success is not guaranteed. In fact, statistics reveal more failures than successes of new inventions that enter the market. However, occasionally entrepreneurs strike gold by developing a revolutionary product and when that happens they must protect their intellectual property (IP).

IP is the greatest asset in a business, it is what draws customers and subsequently generates revenue.

It is, therefore, crucial to protect the IP, as imitators and competitors could possibly steal your idea.

Industrial, or corporate espionage is big business and together with this, IP theft is a significant global challenge, particularly concerning for small businesses that do not have adequate resources to protect their IP or have the means to fight long, outdrawn legal battles against corporates.

That is why there is usually secrecy and scepticism by entrepreneurs to share their innovative ideas. But surely there must be better methods to protect your idea other than keeping it to yourself?

The first defence and probably the most effective is the legal route through a patent. A patent gives its owner the right to exclude others from making, using, selling, and importing an invention for a limited period of time.

This is usually estimated at about 20 years. That means that no other company can duplicate or profit from your invention unless you have given written permission through a license agreement. It also gives you the legal right to challenge any similar products on the grounds of patent infringement.

In South Africa, the Companies and Intellectual Property Commission is the administrator of IP law and covers patents, copyrights and trademarks.

However, entrepreneurs are also faced with the challenge of obtaining IP protection, which is often tedious and complicated. That is why you must first determine whether your invention meets the legal conditions to be granted a patent.

That information can be found on the Companies and Intellectual Property Commission website.

If you determine that your invention meets the minimum requirement, your next step must be to conduct thorough research to determine if your invention has not already been patented.

You can do this by doing a search on patentsearch.cipc.co.za

However, South Africa operates and trades in an international market of which IP rights apply across borders. Therefore, you must conduct a secondary search on www.wipo.int which is a portal that documents international patents from other participating countries.

Even after a successful preliminary search, it still doesn’t guarantee a successful application and not to mention the possibility of a challenge from an existing patent holder, which again embroils an entrepreneur in legal battles, additional costs and a prolonged application.

In the end, the benefits of a patent far outweigh the onerous process needed to obtain IP protection.

Munya Duvera is the director of Duvera Elgroup