Ease your intellectual property worries with the Tech Trailblazers’ IP Clinic

Starting up a business is no easy task and one of the key worries, especially when you begin to garner some success, is that someone might be able to steal your idea. Protecting your intellectual property is vital to stop a potential rival from running off with all your hard work, but where do you start?

Expert advice on hand

Tech Trailblazers has an expert on hand in the form of Donal O’Connell, to offer all the advice about intellectual property that you might need. Over a series of articles, our IP Clinic covers an array of topics that you’ll find useful in your quest to protect your intellectual property and thereby the future prosperity of your company.

Donal’s expertise has been fined honed after 21 years at Nokia, where he had such roles as VP of R&D and a Director of IP. Currently he is the Managing Director of Chawton Innovation Services, a firm which offers consultancy in the areas of innovation and intellectual property management. He also teaches IP management at Imperial College Business School in London.

Tech Trailblazers IP Clinic

Find out more about each topic by following the ‘Read more…’ link which will open the article in a new window.

1. Soft IP

Find out about common ‘soft’ IP related mistakes made by SMEs, in particular on trademarks, domain names, and social media handles. Read more…

2. Trade Secrets

Beware relying on NDAs when sharing your trade secrets with others. Donal warns that NDAs are like confetti and a company should not depend solely on NDAs. Read more…

3. IP Risk Management

Make sure you put in place processes, methods, and tools for managing IP risks. Identification, assessment, and prioritization of IP-related risks could help you reduce, or even eliminate, the probability and impact of such dangers. Read more…

4. Open-source software

Open-source software may seem free, but there are legal, security, operational, business, and  IP risks that you should consider before you embrace it wholeheartedly. Read more…

5. Prior Art Search 101

Getting a patent to protect your IP might seem like a no-brainer, but how do you know that someone hasn’t already come up with the idea? Donal gives advice, including free patent search tools, to help you avoid making that mistake. Read more…

6. IP Licensing

Maybe you need access to someone else’s IP to fuel your own innovation or perhaps you’re looking to make some money from your own IP. Either way you’ll want to know more about intellectual property licensing. Read more…

7. Trade Secret Misappropriation

Donal goes through the anatomy of a Trade Secret Misappropriation court case, giving an example of what might happen when a company’s trade secrets get stolen. Read more…

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