Intellectual Property Protection and Commercialisation

The protection and commercialisation of intellectual property (IP) are corner stones of our work for clients. We provide a complete life cycle of services for intellectual property.

Our legal and related consulting work registers, protects and creates a foundation for securing value from the commercialisation of IP assets.

    • We first define and evaluate your IP and position in business. This leads to recommendations for appropriate legal protection and discussion of them with you. With a go ahead we’ll execute on your requirements and produce contracts and related documents to suit.
    • Categories of intellectual property for which we have experience include:
        • Trade mark law (eg names, logos, product labels, domain names, tag lines and various protectable elements of brands and identity)
        • Copyright law (protection for text, photos, images, graphics, music compositions and recordings, video, animations etc)
        • Confidential information law (protecting trade secrets, know-how and secret recipes, formulae, business ideas etc)
        • Patent law (registration is available for inventions that are novel and useful, including software and digital platforms)
        • Registered design law (protecting the shape, configuration or pattern of products observable to the human eye)
        • Identifiers protected by law (protecting colour schemes, formats and wine and other product label designs).

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For our Intellectual Property Protection and Commercialisation service read the three tabs below titled Q&A, Pricing and What We Need From You.

Q&A – Top questions answered

What's the first best step to protect company intellectual property?

The first step is to contact a lawyer who can identify and categorise your IP and develop a strategy for it. Plan before you implement or register!

    • Every organisation has a name, few have a brand strategy integrating trade mark registrations with trading, company and domain names and social media handles.
    • All have confidential information, few define and manage it.
    • Many have copyrights but no written in-house standard template licence or assignment agreements.
    • A few invest in patents seeking profit, a small percentage get there.

To overcome those sub-optimal results, once IP is identified what’s needed is an actionable IP strategy and follow-on business decisions and guidance. We’ve done this for several hundreds of clients.

We provide practical guidance for clients in what to do to protect their IP. Every client with IP should have the guidance captured in the documents below.

    • Brand and Identity Table grouping and listing names, brands, logos, social media banners and all the other elements that make up an organisation’s identity.
    • How to Use Intellectual Property Notices. This is a one page guide. While not legally essential, the use of legal notices minimizes legal issues. 
    • Confidential Information Guide. This is a detailed guide with very practical and easily implementable guidance for protection of secrets.
    • Intellectual Property Register listing each category of IP, numbers, renewal dates and other particulars. The register serves many purposes. It gives investors and their advisers immediate understanding of what there is. It gives valuers input for their analysis. It builds a portfolio that communicates to asset and businesses buyers and stock markets in an initial public offering.

What clauses should an IP licence include?

It’s best to call us for a chat and a free questionnaire. There’s no short answer. Call for us for a chat about your situation. We may select and email a suitable and very informative complementary custom questionnaire.

There’s many options and alternatives for clauses to include in an IP licence, including those below.

    • You may need provisions or attachments to identify the IP.
    • The IP licence may need clauses setting out:
        • Duration
        • Territory
        • IP use rights
        • Definition of the scope of exclusivity
        • Assignment of adaptations
        • Quality and standards compliance.
    • Depending on the situation it may be prudent to also include in an IP licence – security provisions such as warranties, restraints of trade, indemnities, liability limitations and exclusions, powers of attorney, and a termination clause.

How can I increase the value of my company's IP assets?

    1. Identify the current and future company IP.
    2. Maintain an up-to-date IP register, documentation and records.
    3. Grow followers, users and customers for the IP.
    4. Work with collaborators to leverage the IP towards new audiences and markets.
    5. Centrally manage IP, ensuring employees and contractors assign IP in any work creation.

What laws protect inventions?

    1. Situation assessment: Every invention needs to be assessed to determine what laws might provide monopoly ownership and control.
    2. Confidential information law: Where there is a patentable invention there’s also confidential information. When that’s written there’s also usually some copyright rights.
    3. Trade mark law: Every invention needs a name, selecting a legally protectable one will provide support under trade mark law and related name protection laws.
    4. Laws for ownership and control: As for ownership and control over the invention, there’s a host of laws depending on the nature of the entity or entities with legal interests in the invention.

What financial models do IP owners use to make money?

Here’s a short list of 12. Setting the legal basis for remuneration for IP is among the most valuable work we do for clients.

    1. Crowdfunding
    2. Licensing (it’s akin to rental)
    3. Pay per view
    4. Sale
    5. Subscription
    6. Profit sharing
    7. Freemium
    8. Sponsorship
    9. Performance (eg paid influencer)
    10. In-app sales
    11. Free distribution supported by advertising
    12. Free distribution of content supported by paid performances (eg as used by music composer-performers)

What first IP job should a start-up attend to?

In most cases, order a professional name and trade mark availability search for the proposed start-up brand. If the ambition is international then the availability search should be internationally. Getting an available domain is hard enough. Use experienced search professionals to implement a name strategy and seek to adopt a brand which can be a registered trade mark, in target countries, and for a broad range of products or services. It’s helpful to also adopt consistent social media handles.

Email or call us for a chat and a costed proposal for any name or other identity you have in mind.

Your future investment will be on the foundation of the identity decisions you make. For a lesson in what can go wrong consider our estimate that Apple paid maybe about US$500 million over four decades to be rid of claims by the owner of the Apple name associated with the record company label first established for The Beatles.

Commercialisation work comes after creation work. Right?

Wrong. The world is awash with apps, software, music, books, websites and other content with no or few paying users.

It’s a common error to postpone thinking on business models, ecommerce, monetisation and commercialisation.

Certainly having proprietary IP to begin with is a first need. How to gain from it should usually be progressed in parallel. Amen.

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We’ll provide a fixed price after we conduct an initial review of your business structure and IP assets, and existing legal documents.

Below are examples of fees or fee ranges (all are inclusive of GST) for common IP documents are listed below.

    • Confidentiality Letter Agreement (aka NDA) with our practical Confidential Information Guide: $660
    • Intellectual Property Assignment Deed – often from $660 to $880
    • Licence Agreement – often from $880 to $1,650
    • Intellectual Property Register: $660 to $990
    • Privacy Policy: $660

Any existing intellectual property agreement and the following:

      • Trade mark: A list of all your business’s trade marks, business and company names, logos, brands and domain names
      • Copyright: Examples of copyright works your business uses or intends to use (eg website text and images)
      • Patent: Short description of any patent (application and registration)
      • Confidential information: Any confidentiality agreement
      • Designs: Image of your product design and description of its use
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