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Ownership of IP rights
Ownership of IP rights
Gain and maintain the rights to your IP
Ownership of IP rights is the legal recognition you receive for your creative effort. It gives you the right to fully exploit your IP-to own, sell, license or bequeath your IP in much the same way as you can with real estate.
Having the ability to assign or license those rights allows you maximum flexibility in choosing a course of action that will best profit your business.
Copyright and circuit layout rights are automatically granted upon creation. You must register all other IP rights with the relevant government organisation.
If you don't develop appropriate strategies to protect your IP from an early stage, you may lose your legal right to patent your innovative product or idea.
If you tell someone about your ideas before seeking appropriate protection, or sell unpatented products, your competitors can use them.
Your products will no longer be considered new so you will be unable to obtain a patent. Nor will you be able to protect your products from being copied.
Some types of IP rights need to be maintained, e.g. by paying annual maintenance fees, in order to keep your legal right to use the IP exclusively.
Different IP rights vary in the protection they provide. Often, more than one may be necessary to fully protect your creation.
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