Securing Your Small Business’s Profit

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10 February 2018. If you’re in the process of setting up your own small business, you’ll be well aware of how much hard work, time, and money you have to pour into every facet of your company. Before you even get things off the ground, you have to invest a whole lot into brand basics such as your company name, logo, and color scheme. Then you have to focus on developing your product concept and placing it in the market with market research. Once things are ready to go, you have to work on product manufacturing, marketing campaigns, and advertising.

It’s not surprising that you’re going to want to protect your assets and reputation from others who aren’t quite so willing to put in the time and effort necessary to make a success of a product and a brand. Unfortunately, if you don’t take the right steps, others will be able to directly copy your work and profit from it and there won’t be a whole lot that you can do. So, if you want to avoid this, read on for a comprehensive guide to protecting your company and secure the profits that are rightfully yours.

Understanding intellectual property

When people talk about “property”, thoughts of tangible items spring to mind. But you can indeed own something that isn’t physical. Intellectual property can be any creation of the mind, invention, symbol, name, image, or literary or artistic work that is intended to be used in commerce. Intellectual property rights allow you as a business owner to protect any of these things and ensure that others cannot profit from what is yours to profit from. In short, if you take the right protective measures, others cannot use your design.

Trademarking

So, where to start? Well, one of the first thing that you can do to secure your future profits is to engage with trademarking. A trademark is a word, phrase, symbol, or design that identifies and differentiates your design from anyone else’s. Things to consider trademarking include your brand name, slogan, and logo. This is a brilliant investment, as it does not have an expiry date. As long as you keep your trademarked asset in use, it is covered. So trademarking could, potentially, last forever! Bear in mind that it’s best to get this process started sooner rather than later, as it will take a year to eighteen months to get a trademark. It is by no means an overnight process. So get organized!

Patenting

If your products are innovative and haven’t been seen on the market before, you may want to consider a patent. A patent is essentially a property right that ensures only you can sell this product on the market. All patents are a limited duration, but this will give you the opportunity to establish yourself as the market leader in the field and the original creator of the product.

Taking these steps to secure what is rightfully yours can help to reduce the amount of loss that you may see as a result of others immorally taking your ideas, design, and product designs. So ensure to carry them out as soon as possible!

The opinions expressed in this post are the contributor’s and not those of Science & Enterprise.

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