After the last article in which we discussed the many types of intellectual property, now it’s time to take into account your options when your intellectual property rights are infringed.
What is an infringement of intellectual property?
An infringement occurs when your intellectual property is used without your permission by:
- a competitor;
- an employee or former employee;
- a contractor or consultant that you have engaged, or previously engaged;
- anyone else.
When should I enforce my intellectual property rights?
You should consider enforcing your intellectual property rights in order to protect the value of your intellectual property. If anyone can use your trademark, patent, or other intellectual property rights without compensating you for that use, your intellectual property rights do not maintain value.
In other words, your intellectual property rights maintain value only for as long as the use of your intellectual property is not free. If you know that your intellectual property rights are being infringed, you can seek a court order to stop the illegal usage and to be financially compensated by the infringer.
To protect your reputation
If your trademark has a reputation in the marketplace, the misuse of the trademark may have a negative impact upon that reputation. You may want to stop that misuse by seeking an injunction.
Prevent infringing products entering in your country
If you are aware of products entering the country where you operate that infringe your trademark or copyright, you can ask Customs authorities to seize the infringing products and stop them.
If you have a fair but strong reputation for enforcing your intellectual property rights, it may deter infringers. Conversely, if you have a reputation for not enforcing your intellectual property rights, it may encourage infringers.
Not every holder of intellectual property rights incurs legal fees in enforcing their intellectual property rights. In fact, relatively a few amount of people ever need to seek legal help.
Is court action the only way that I can enforce my intellectual property rights?
You may need to go to court to seek an order to protect your intellectual property rights, but not everyone who enforces their intellectual property rights has to go to court.
All of the following approaches are possible:
- Issuing a letter of demand
You can demand for a person to stop infringing your rights. The infringer may have not known that they were infringing until receiving your letter. Even if they were aware of their misuse, they may decide not to test your resolve to protect your intellectual property rights. In both cases, it’s possible that a letter could stop their infringement.
- Granting a licence
An infringer may respond to a letter of demand by asking that you grant them a licence, and offering to pay you a royalty.
Depending on whether their use of your intellectual property was in competition with your own business, you might consider that request, thus earning an additional source of profit from your intellectual property.
- Alternative dispute resolution
Before going to court, you may want to consider alternative dispute resolutions (i.e. to avoid the expense of litigation).
As you can see, there are multiple ways to deal with intellectual property infringement and we are more than happy to help you choose the right one. Don’t hesitate to contact us.
