Intellectual Property

Articles and guides for UK SMEs on effective management of Intellectual Property rights and on leveraging IP assets such as patents, copyrights, trademarks, and trade secrets.

Business Ideas & Planning

Intellectual property – how to protect yours as a start up or scale up

Many owners of start up and scale up businesses overlook the importance of protecting their intellectual property. Zain Ali (pictured) of Centuro Global explains what to do and why.

Legal advice

A guide to trade marks and the benefits of registration

SmallBusiness.co.uk and Helene Whelbourn and Alastair Rawlence of intellectual property specialist NOVAGRAAF provide this guide to trade marks and the benefits of registering them.

Legal advice

What is IP and what should start-ups be doing to protect it?

Here, Jennifer Baile discusses why it is so important for owners of start-ups to carefully consider how a robust IP strategy will help to safeguard the commercial proposition and future growth of their business.

Legal advice

Is there value in protecting IP you don’t intend to use?

In this piece Peter Finnie, patent attorney and managing partner at Gill Jennings & Every, discusses how defensive patents can be of value to your business.

Legal advice

Intellectual property considerations for SMEs

Here, Martin Hyden, partner at Finnegan Europe LLP, discusses why it is important for small businesses to protect their intellectual property.

Legal advice

The dangers of intellectual property infringement for small businesses

Rachel Jones explains why small business owners need to be vigilant to protect their brand online and shares practical steps to tackling infringing and counterfeit products.

Business Ideas & Planning

Intellectual property: why timing can be everything

Here, Peter Finnie, managing partner of Gill Jennings & Every, tells us why the timing of a patent application can mean everything to your intellectual property.

Business Ideas & Planning

The five things to do after creating a new product or artistic work

Here are some tips on getting the foundations of your business right, from a legal and marketing standpoint.

Legal advice

Do not get caught out by changes to European trademark protection

Brand owners have been advised that recent changes to EU trademark legislation could leave some trademarks with a reduced scope of protection.

Legal advice

The top global destinations for protecting your IP

Justin Simpson discusses the world's most popular international filing destinations and how best UK small businesses can maximise IP protection in these countries from the outset.

Legal advice

The Trunki patent case and small business IP

Rob Law's Trunki suitcase was a hit – but then another product came along that he felt looked awfully similar. Here, we look at why the rival was deemed not to have copied Law's design and what company owners should do to protect their ideas.

News

More UK companies protecting intellectual property year on year

European patent applications filed by British applicants rose by 5.7 per cent in 2015 compared to the previous year, according to figures released by the European Patent Office (EPO).