Know the value of information

Intellectual assets are central to many businesses and relevant to all, even if it is only a matter of the corporate logo. Lawrence Smith-Higgins, the head of business outreach and education at the Government’s Intellectual Property Office, said: “You need to be aware of intellectual property rights to be able to make informed business decisions.” Mark Friend, head of media and entertainment in the technical services division of CapGemini, a management consultancy, said: “If you do not protect your intellectual property, you can’t exploit it.”

Conduct a knowledge audit

It’s not just inventions and secret recipes that matter; organisations need to find a way to catalogue all the business-critical information that rests in people’s heads, from the sales manager’s understanding of the best way to approach key clients to the factory foreman’s knowledge of how to adjust equipment settings in damp weather. “Otherwise, there is a risk that when people leave, valuable information is walking out the door,” Dave Croston, a partner at Withers & Rogers, patent and trade mark attorneys, said. “You need to reduce the amount of information that is known exclusively by one person or only a few people.”

Obtain legal protection

“Once you have conducted the audit, see what should be the subject of registered protection and take steps accordingly,” Mr Croston said. Consider whether you need international protection; registering a trade mark in the UK does not protect it overseas. Mr Friend said: “Before you go too far down [the path], you need to decide what you are trying to do. With trade marks and patents, you are trying to stop other people using it, whereas with copyright you tend to be allowing people to use it, as long as they use it properly.”

The law isn’t everything

The law can’t protect everything, so learn to keep secrets. “The best protection for products and inventions is registered protection, but too frequently people get wrapped up in what can be protected by patents and we forget about the valuable knowledge around it that fleshes out the product or adds value,” Mr Croston said.

People are central

Protecting existing intellectual property is important but organisations also need to consider where new intellectual assets will come from, Simon Burnett, director of Robert Gordon University’s Centre for Knowledge Management, said. He added: “It is as important to protect and keep the people who create the ideas as the ideas themselves. Our research shows that the people who go off and start innovative little companies are those who felt that they weren’t listened to in big companies.”

Contracts and confidentiality

Ensure that all employment contracts include a confidentiality clause making it clear that staff are not to disclose work-related information. Mr Croston said: “Likewise, you need some sort of covenant to restrict the use of that information after they leave.” Insist that outside parties sign a non-disclosure agreement before discussing sensitive information.

Culture

When employees recognise the value of information, they are less likely to leave confidential documents in cabs or have loud conversations about proprietary information on trains. “Make sure people know that failing to protect intellectual assets is a disciplinary issue,” Mr Croston said. Disclosing confidential information to an outsider, even unwittingly, can prevent a patent being granted or mean it can be used by competitors.

Security

If information stays inside your company, it is safe. Control the circumstances under which it leaves — for example, by banning camera phones, memory sticks and other storage media from your office.

Enforce your rights

“The rights-holder is duty-bound to protect their rights, otherwise someone else can move in,” Mr Smith-Higgins said. “You can’t just sit there or you will lose the protection.”

Understand others’ rights

Use www.ipo.gov.uk to check whether someone else has registered a trademark that your organisation plans to use. Mr Smith-Higgins has seen countless cases of businesses launching new products or services only to find that the name belongs to someone else and they have to stop using it immediately.

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