Get the right advice about IP
Advisers' roles
Using IP skilfully generally requires the assistance of a range of different professional advisers who can help clarify and maximise the value of your IP rights.
Accountants and tax accountants
Focus:
- tax
- financial planning
Accountants provide services and advice on a range of financial issues. An accountant can advise on whether or not IP can be formally identified as an asset, what value can be ascribed to it on your balance sheet and how to treat it from a tax perspective.
IP is an asset that attracts capital gains tax and stamp duty, depending on the circumstances.
An accountant or tax accountant should also be consulted if you are considering selling, buying or licensing IP rights. For example, there are tax implications associated with royalties, which are normally viewed as income for tax purposes.
Branding consultant
Focus:
- corporate image
- product branding
- business naming
Branding consultants can add value to your business by helping to create a name or trade mark for your business, corporate entity, products or services. A name must be marketable and able to be protected in order to maximise the value and power that is associated with that name.
Branding consultants help you create and implement a full corporate, product or services brand and image strategy to position you in your market as distinctive, unique and independent.
When undertaking branding work, it is important to keep in mind whether you can trade mark your new brand. IP Australia's TM Headstart service can help.
IP lawyers
Focus:
- legal and business structure
- contracts and ownership
- IP infringement
An IP lawyer can provide your business with a legal or ownership framework and structure that protects your business and its operations. An IP lawyer can also help establish a viable structure for potential joint venture companies.
IP lawyers are also able to advise on IP infringement matters and when contracts around your IP are being developed. In addition there are lawyers who specialise in copyright law.
Franchising and export consultants
Focus:
- licensing
- exporting
Franchising consultants can help you create new streams of income from your IP by licensing it to third parties.
Export consultants can expand your IP's earning power, as well as that of your products and services, into new geographic and cultural areas.
Management adviser
Focus:
- business development
- business planning
- management restructuring
Management consultants can provide valuable strategic advice based on their understanding of the environment in which your business is operating. They can facilitate the strategic process from analysis through to planning and implementation.
Management consultants can aid business development by helping you review the opportunities to expand your business in the light of market conditions, financial constraints, management relations issues and external factors such as legislation and government development incentives.
Management consultants can also help you build organisational competence and enhance the skills of your people. This includes providing valuable advice on the most appropriate.
Patent and trade mark attorney
Focus:
- patents
- trade marks
Patent and trade mark attorneys can help you protect valuable income-earning IP by providing a depth of national and international knowledge on how to register your specific forms of IP.
You may need to seek the advice of a patent attorney at an early stage, to ensure that your innovation can be patented and that you take the necessary steps to keep the innovation secure.
You may need to take the advice of a trade mark attorney at an early stage, and before you have chosen your trade mark, to determine whether or not it can be registered.
Patent and trade mark attorneys are not necessarily lawyers. Patent attorneys will have qualifications in a technical areas such as physics, engineering or chemistry, but they have also studied patent legislation. Trade mark attorneys will have qualifications relating to trade mark legislation.
A patent attorney can also assist with design registration, as can an IP lawyer.
Plant breeder qualified person
Focus:
- plant breeder's rights
To ensure technical rigour in granting plant breeder's rights, innovators need to engage the services of an accredited qualified person. The qualified person, in collaboration with IP Australia, accepts responsibility for all aspects of the comparative trial, including the choice of comparative varieties, experimental design, data collection, statistical analysis and preparing a description of the variety.
There are more than 200 Qualified Persons in Australia and New Zealand, each of whom is accredited to consult on a range of plant species in which they have expertise.
More information
Last Updated: 03/12/2012
