Chapter 8
Protecting Your Products and Services
IN THIS CHAPTER
Protecting your mousetrap — patents
Protecting your creative efforts — copyrights
Protecting your brand — trademarks
Protecting everything else — trade secrets
Developing a strategy for intellectual property (IP)
When entrepreneurs start businesses, they acquire or create assets, both tangible and intangible. They create new knowledge, which is an example of an intangible asset. Products and manufacturing equipment are examples of tangible assets. Whereas in the past, businesses owned more tangible assets than intangible, today the reverse is frequently the case.
Understanding Intellectual Property Rights
We generally identify three categories of knowledge as intangible assets. They are listed here from the weakest to the strongest:
- Intellectual capital is perhaps the most common form of knowledge as an asset because it arises from the regular daily activities in the business: employees chatting in the lunchroom ...
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