How Important is Intellectual Property for Franchisors and Entrepreneurs

As an owner of a franchise or owner of a non-franchised business you probably place great priority on devoping your businesses intellectual property and because most entrepreneurs are very creative in nature you probably have put a lot of time into your intellectual property.  The mistake that is commonly made among franchisors and entrepreneurs of non-franchised businesses though is not protecting their intellectual property the way they should. 

Intellectual property, which consists of trademarks, trade designs and any innovations that may be subject to patent, must be carefully and creatively protected to ensure that no one else can use your creative and innovative products and designs that you have put so much time into creating for your franchise or business. 

In Charles Internicola's recent blog post, "Intellectual Property: A Two Sided Coin for Franchisors and Entrepreneurs", he mentions four key things you should consider when structuring your intellectual property protection with your legal counsel:

• Have a confidentiality agreement in place with certain employees- have any employees with access to confidential information about your product and/or customers sign a confidentiality agreement.
• Have a confidentiality agreement in place with your production source - similar to the confidentiality agreement you have with your employees you should have a confidentiality agreement in place with the source who produces your product with respect to the key components or processes involved in the production of your products and supplies.
• Periodically review your trademark information with your corporate counsel - as a franchisor or an entrepreneur you should periodically discuss  your trademark information with a franchise lawyer or a business lawyer to make sure your trademark registrations are current and to find out if supplemental steps need to be taken to keep your intellectual property properly protected.
  
• Evaluate your product and determine if it would benefit from a design patent - determine whether or not your product would benefit from a design patent and if so start the process to patent the product.
  

These among other points are things you should consider regarding your franchise or businesses intellectual property and should be discusses with your corporate counsel for your specific franchise or business needs.