Intellectual properties such as brand names, copyrights, patents, and design ideas are far more important than physical assets such as company structures, facilities, and vehicles. This is because harm or infringement on any of the intellectual properties can cause the company unprecedented damage, which in the best case can result in millions being spent on legal battles and other fights and, in the worst case, can result in complete closure of the business.
And it is usually for this reason that companies are urged to take intellectual property protection very seriously. It is more effective to protect your brand assets than to redeem your image after some damage has been done to any of your intellectual assets.
Hence, in this article, we will consider what intellectual property protection is, why it is important, the likely challenges you may face while trying to protect what is rightfully yours, and the solutions for overcoming these challenges.
What is Intellectual Property Protection?
Intellectual property may be defined as those digital assets a brand owns, and they make up the integral and core part of the brand. Losing them can damage the business and lead to overall failure in any long-term viability.
Therefore, intellectual property protection can be defined as active measures taken to observe and protect a brand’s digital assets regularly. These assets can range from copyrights and patents to brand identity and social media profiles.
Protecting a brand’s intellectual properties is important to prevent infringement and theft and improve competitiveness and innovation. It is also important to protect your brand assets to protect your customers and help you make more profits.
Why is Intellectual Property Protection Important?
Let us now explain some of the reasons why companies protect their intellectual assets:
To Differentiate the Brand
In a world where several products and services share numerous similarities, it is becoming increasingly important for businesses to stand apart in the market. Being different makes it easier for your customers to identify you amongst your competition and patronize you. Protecting your digital assets is therefore important in helping you achieve this.
To Prevent Damage To Brand Reputation
Countless brands have suffered irrecoverable reputation damage because they first had their assets stolen. People who steal intellectual properties do so to impersonate the original brand and create counterfeit goods and services. Protecting intellectual properties should therefore be a brand first line of defence to an endless list of problems.
To Boost Income and Revenue
Copyrights, patents, and display rights for sports and films are usually protected because that is the only way the companies can maximize profit and increase their revenue. Protecting those rights ensures that no unlicensed person is taking profit for something they do not own or have rights to.
To Foster Innovation and Growth
Brands also need to protect unique ideas, product concepts, and trademarks to help foster innovation and development. When a brand has something that other businesses do not, it becomes easier to scale up to more quickly and grow faster.
Main Risks to Intellectual Property Protection
Unless you hire a professional security agency to do it for you, the bulk of the work of protecting your intellectual assets lies on your shoulders. However, the process is not easy and can be easily encumbered with several challenges such as:
Geo-Restrictions
When it comes to protecting things online, the greatest hindrance has got to be geo-restrictions. This blocking mechanism reads the user’s internet protocol (IP) address and then blocks them when it identifies their location to be from a given geographical region.
Infringement could be going on in another part of the globe, but the affected brand would not even know simply because they cannot access the internet in certain areas.
Geo-restriction limits the user’s ability to access the internet worldwide, which can cause significant damage to the affected company’s reputation and revenue.
Overall Cost
For some brands, the major challenge could be what it costs to protect the brand and its assets online. Protecting intellectual properties consists of actions taken regularly to observe and rein in any suspicious activities. And this requires time, effort, and funds – things that may prove difficult for smaller businesses.
Fast Internet Connection
For some businesses, it is the pace at which they can access information on the internet that is their biggest challenge. Protecting brand assets means having first-hand information on everything that concerns the brand on the web. It implies that the brand needs to have a very fast internet connection which can become a problem where it is not possible.
Main Solutions to These Risks
The first step to protecting your brand online is by doing all necessary registrations. The rest is to find a way to overcome the above challenges. There are quite a few options, but the best solution remains to use a proper proxy.
A proxy can quickly access the web, constantly and automatically collect information to eliminate fatigue and the need for you to put in any time while also successfully overcoming any geo-restrictions.
For instance, by using a United States proxy, a brand can access region-specific data quickly and save resources. The US proxy and other similar proxies help avoid geo-blocking in other regions and make the data gathering process more efficient.
Conclusion
Very few activities precede a brand and continue to be a valid process as long as the company remains. One of such activities is intellectual property protection. Not protecting your assets online can cost you more than all the steps taken to keep your assets safe. And even though there are possible challenges, there is none that a proper proxy cannot handle.
